Saturday, October 24, 2015

Rwanda is Helping Lead the Way to Gender Equality by Tracy A

Tracy A
Huye District, Southern Province
When women advance, everyone benefits. The key principle, in addition to understanding gender equality as a human right, is to use talents of all our people to full potential, in politics, business and elsewhere. This is common sense if we want to advance and improve our societies.” – Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda


When world leaders and other players in global development convened from September 25th-27th for the United National Sustainable Development Summit 2015 in New York, they made sure to put gender equality on the agenda, adopting the goal to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.”   One leader in attendance that has been consistently noted for his commitment in the fight for equality was Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda.   At the time of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, when then United States First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton famously proclaimed that “woman’s rights are human rights,” Rwanda was cited as one of the worst violators of woman’s rights.  Flash forward twenty years later, and with a growing economy (at an annual growth rate of about 8%), Rwanda has progressed from its image of “women’s rights violators,” to being revered for its work in achieving gender equality.  With the leadership of Paul Kagame and the determination of Rwandans to develop their nation and respect women’s right as a human right, Rwanda was acknowledged by the 2014 World Economic Forum as the best performer in closing the gender gap in Africa, and was ranked 7th of out 142 nations in the world, which is higher than most developed nations, including the United States which comes in at 20. 
It has also been argued that few nations in the developing world have actively endeavored to accomplish their goal of gender equality more than Rwanda.  For example, 64% of Rwanda’s parliamentary seats are held by women, making it the country with the highest women in parliament (to compare, the global average is 20% of women in parliament).  Also, Rwanda knows the importance of educating girls and has reached gender parity with 98% of girls reported to be enrolled in primary school, and girls making up 52% of students in secondary school.  In addition, Rwanda has made a commitment to ending gender-based violence, and is overall trying to fully integrate girls and women economically including exposing them to ICT and expanding their technical skills by increasing their enrollment in TVET’s.   When the HeForShe Campaign was unveiled, which for those that don’t know is an initiative created by UN Women that encourages boys and men to participate in the fight for gender equality, it was noted that Kagame was one of the first leaders to show his support, and he pledged at least 100,000 pledges of support from Rwandan boys and men, and encouraged other African nations to do the same. 
Although Rwanda has made tremendous progress on its own accord and serves as a bright spot in an otherwise bleak narrative of global gender inequality and women’s rights abuses, there is still a ways to go.  This is especially true in some rural communities where traditional gender roles, biases, and norms can still rule households, and can impede on the prosperity of girls and consequently their families, their communities, and their country.  Although this culture exists in some communities, as a Peace Corps volunteer in a rural community I am constantly impressed with the overall awareness of the importance of gender equality especially amongst the young people I encounter and work with.  Rwandan youth will be an essential part in their nation’s attainment of gender equality, and it is generally simple to expose them to the importance at young age, including opening up a dialogue on gender equality in which both boys and girls participate, and instilling confidence in girls by encouraging them to speak up or even raise their hands in class to answer a question. 
Peace Corps Rwanda volunteers with the support of GAD, but only with Rwandan citizens in the forefront, can implement projects and activities in their communities that can help project full realization that when girls and women are afforded the same opportunities as boys and men in all sectors of society, everyone truly benefits.  Rwanda has the potential to be, and should be an example to the world on how striving towards gender equality can develop and sustain a nation.  It is in everybody’s best interest to ensure that Rwanda, and also other countries, economically-developed or not, does not diverge from its desire for girls to reach their upmost socio-economic potential.   And as the HeForShe initiative posits, male allies are very much needed in the fight for gender equality and women’s rights.  So I leave you with a few male youth allies to voice why they think gender equality is important, in their own words.  These boys attend the secondary school in my community and were a part of the South Regional BE (Boys Excelling) camp in August.  They were also the first ones to accept my call in my community to sign the online petition for the HeForShe Campaign, and show solidarity for gender equality and help Rwanda reach its 100,000 pledge goal. 



"Some countries, including Rwanda, are striving towards equality between men and women.  Gender equality is the development of a country.  It improves the economics of a country, and fights discrimination against women.  When men and women share the same status, it helps lead to a peaceful society. All people must make an effort to respect gender equality."- Emmanuel
"Gender equality is important in a society because it allows everyone to express his or her own opinion.  For example, when men and women join their ideas in politics about how their country should be developed, it is necessary to listen to everyone’s ideas to determine which ones are best.  Gender equality is also needed in the home, when men and women share the same respect in their different work, it helps improve families.  When both sexes share the same rights in a society, it leads to the development of that society."-Eric
"Gender equality is very important because if women and man have an equal chance for any work, it will improve countries, and lead to unity and reconciliation.  It will also improve the confidence of girls and women to do as well as men in roles that are considered to be male activities."- Herve Noel