Tag: AFRICA

Female motor mechanic inspires women to break gender barriers in Zimbabwe … A special report by Tafara Mugwara

When most people think of a motor mechanic, what they often visualize is a man covered in grime and grease — the idea of a woman under the hood is still strange to many people.

Memory Bere, however, is not the stereotypical mechanic. She is among a growing number of female motor mechanics smashing gender bias and driving change in the male-dominated automotive repair and maintenance industry.

“As a female mechanic, my goal is to break the gender bias in the motor mechanic industry and create the next generation of vibrant female motor mechanics,” Bere, 30, told Xinhua at her workshop in Chitungwiza, a town near Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.

Her ambition is to encourage more women to become motor mechanics.

“When I grew up, my father had a Datsun 1500 and I used to call it a ‘scoro-scoro’ car because each and every time that car would give him problems. So whenever he was fixing his car I was always by his side as his spanner girl,” said Bere.

When she finished high school, Bere enrolled in a motor mechanics course.

“The first challenge which I faced was I was the only female mechanic in class and when I finished mechanics I started looking for a job and I couldn’t find one here in Zimbabwe then I decided to go to South Africa. When I went to SA it was also not easy since motor mechanics is a male-dominated field,” she recalled.

When she finally got a job, Bere said she could not find a female mentor to look up to. “I decided that I want to show to the world as well as to the young generation which also wants to follow me that no job is meant for a man or woman. As long as you believe and have faith in yourself that you can do it, you can do it,” she said.

The journey has not been easy as society has set the bar unfairly high for women who have to work harder than men to receive the same recognition. Despite her colorful resume, some customers still lacked faith in her and would frequently ask to be served by a male mechanic.

“There was this customer, he brought his BMW and he wanted to change brake pads. My boss asked me to change the pads. So I changed the brake pads and then after I finished tightening the wheels the customer noticed I was the one who was doing his car. Then he asked one of my colleagues to cross-check if I had done the right thing. Apparently, he didn’t know that the guy whom he was calling was my assistant mechanic,” she said.

Bere said she realized that gender bias was ingrained in society as fellow women also failed to support her.

“When I entered the field as a female, I expected to get support from other women but unfortunately I couldn’t get one because some ladies were looking down upon me that have you ever seen a female mechanic. It’s something which is unbelievable especially in our culture that a lady can do a man’s job,” she said.

Despite the lack of support, facing sexual harassment and experiencing offensive jokes at the workplace, Bere managed to create a name for herself. “There are some incidences whereby you find that those guys might fail to fix the car and at the end of the day they will call me and I will go there and fix the car. So it means I have already proved myself that I can do this job, and I am even more qualified.”

Bere’s secret to success has always been going the extra mile.

“I always believe in a word of saying a woman’s touch is perfect. And when I am doing my job even my customers know that I always make sure I do it perfectly, and I don’t have any job whereby it’s a comeback job,” she said.

Bere has since started going to schools encouraging girls to pursue careers in male-dominated fields.

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“Young girls should consider taking trades in the male-dominated fields because these male-dominated fields are more practical. You don’t need much of your education. What you need to do is only to know practical as well as to use your hands to work,” she said.

The mechanic said she found her job to be a rewarding profession on many levels. Now her goal is to see more young women entering the industry.

Currently, she is grooming more than 20 female mechanics who are interning at various companies

UNICEF reveals staggering scale of grave violations against children in conflict. Between 2016 and 2020, average of 19 verified grave violations against children every day in West and Central Africa

Between 2005 and 2020, the United Nations verified over 266,000 grave violations against children committed by parties to conflict in more than 30 conflict situations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, UNICEF said in a new report.

This figure is a fraction of the violations believed to have occurred, as access and security constraints, among others, and the shame, pain, and fear that child and family survivors suffer often hamper the reporting, documentation and verification of grave violations against children in situations of armed conflict.

West and Central Africa is the region with the second highest number of verified violations since 2005 with more than 67,000 verified grave violations, accounting for a quarter of all violations globally. In the Central Sahel region (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger), conflict and insecurity have been major drivers of population displacement, which has put children further at risk of grave violations. In these three countries, the number of verified grave violations increased by 40 per cent in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the last quarter of 2021. Hundreds of civilians, including children, have been killed in recent attacks in Burkina Faso and Mali.

The new report – 25 years of children and armed conflict: Taking action to protect children in war – found that between 2005 and 2020 in West and Central Africa more than 7,600 children have been verified as killed or maimed in situations of armed conflict; over 42,000 children have been verified as recruited and used by parties to conflict; at least 4,800 children have been verified as abducted by parties to conflict; parties to conflict have raped, forcibly married, sexually exploited, and committed other grave forms of sexual violence against at least 8,000 children. The United Nations verified more than 2,500 incidents of attacks against schools and hospitals and verified no fewer than 1,900 incidents of denial of humanitarian access for children since 2005 in West and Central Africa.

In most conflict areas in the West and Central Africa region, civilians continue to be targeted. This includes the deliberate targeting of frontline humanitarian workers who are finding it more difficult to deliver life-saving services and supplies to children in large parts of the Central Sahel and other conflict-affected areas of the region.

 “Behind each of the violations detailed in the report is a child, his or her family and members of a community whose lives are torn apart, sometimes forever. We cannot remain indifferent and silent. The killing, abduction, and rape of girls and boys are horrific crimes. The increase in verified grave violations in the Central Sahel over the last quarter and their devastating impact on the wellbeing of children shows the need and importance of continuing our efforts to provide care to the victims and advocate for their immediate end. Attacks on civilians including children must be stopped and all measures for their protection, including during military operations, must be taken,” said Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa.

Based on sixteen years of data from the Secretary-General’s Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict, the report illustrates the impact that armed conflicts have had on children, by presenting trends of grave violations across the world and over time. The report examines how information on the documented patterns of grave violations is being used to respond to children’s needs and how engagement with parties to conflict – State and non-State actors alike[2] – enables ending and preventing grave violations.

The annual number of verified violations in the world has gradually increased since 2005[3], surpassing 20,000 in a year for the first time in 2014 and reaching 26,425 in 2020. Between 2016 and 2020, the daily global average of verified grave violations stood at an alarming 71 violations. The elevated number of violations observed in recent years demonstrates the dramatic impact that armed conflict – and increasingly complex and protracted protection crises[4] – have on children.

The report notes that many children suffer from more than one violation, increasing their vulnerability. For example, abduction is often combined with or leads to other violations, particularly recruitment and use and sexual violence. Children – especially girls – who have been abducted and/or associated with parties to conflict are exposed to elevated risks of sexual violence, including rape, sexual exploitation and forced marriage.

The report found that grave violations against children were committed by States and non-State actors alike underscoring the importance of engagement with all parties to conflict, to meaningfully end and prevent violations against children.

In order to bolster accountability, parties to conflict listed in the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict develop and implement Action Plans with specific, concrete, and time-bound actions to establish sustainable measures to protect children from the impact of conflict. Between 2005 and 2021, in West and Central Africa a total of 16 Action Plans have been signed by parties to conflict in 6 conflict situations. 14 Action Plans were signed with non-State actors, with the remaining 2 were signed with State actors. The report lays out several examples highlighting the critical value and impact of Action Plans in bringing about positive change for children, both in the immediate and long terms, as well as outlining challenges and obstacles.

The ever-growing number of armed non-State actors, the development and employment of new means and methods of warfare, the use of improvised explosive devices and other explosive weapons, particularly in populated areas, are just some of the many factors contributing to the creation of unprecedented challenges for the protection of children in situations of armed conflict.

ALSO READ:FAO appeals for $172mn to avert humanitarian catastrophe in Horn of Africa

It is important to note that the increase in verified violations over time also underscores the increasing strength of the monitoring and reporting mechanism over the years. The development of guidance on monitoring and reporting, the training and capacity building of UN and its partners’ staff on documenting grave violations, and the awareness raising of families and communities on the protection risks for children, have all contributed to strengthen the mechanism and enabled it to collect increased information on grave violations against children.

Whilst the overall ability of the United Nations to document and verify incidents of grave violations has increased over time, it has fluctuated from one year to another, from one situation to another, and from one violation to another. In this regard, and based on all of the above, direct comparisons between situations, years, or violations should be undertaken with caution.

“Major humanitarian crises continue to unfold across West and Central Africa. The situation in Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and multi-country emergencies, including crises in the Central Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin region, are having devastating consequences on children and communities. Beyond the consequences for the victims, grave violations of children’s rights are often accompanied by massive population displacements that increase the vulnerability of thousands of people and expose more children to other risks of violence,” said Ms. Poirier.

People visit the sand sculpture display zone in Zhoushan, east China’s Zhejiang Province, June 28, 2022. The 23rd Zhoushan International Sand Sculpture Festival opened here recently, with over 60 sand sculptures greeting the public.

(Xinhua/Xu Yu)

ALSO READ:FAO appeals for $172mn to avert humanitarian catastrophe in Horn of Africa

World Bank to double educational funding for Central, West Africa

The World Bank Group seeks to double its funding for education in the Western and Central African region by 2025 to accelerate the work of educational reforms, a senior official of the bank said.

Ousmane Diagana, the World Bank Vice President for Western and Central Africa, said this at a press briefing after a one-day strategy meeting of education and finance ministers from the region.

“Currently, our educational portfolio for the region is 3.1 billion dollars, but we intend to double this amount by 2025, making it a minimum of 6.2 billion dollars,” said Diagana.

The vice president said there was the need to accelerate the bank’s support for educational reforms in the region, given the challenges ahead and the challenges imposed by the demography of the continent, and the need to reduce poverty in the region.

As the bank will meet with African leaders in Senegal in July to discuss the new program of financing for the region, Diagana said education would be at the center of these discussions. Strategically, he said the discussions would focus on energy, food, agriculture, education, health, and digitalization.

The one-day meeting attracted more than 40 finance and education ministers from Western and Central Africa. The meeting concluded with an urgent call to advance reforms in education and deliver better access to quality education for young people across the region.

During the meeting, the World Bank unveiled its new regional education strategy titled “From School to Jobs: A Journey for the Young People of Western and Central Africa” for the region.

The strategy provides a roadmap for investments to improve learning and equip young people with the right skills to access productive jobs.

Humanitarian Crisis

Urgent international funding is needed to assist communities in the Horn of Africa (HOA) experiencing the worst drought in 40 years and avert a major humanitarian crisis in the coming months, Concern Worldwide, an international campaigner, has warned.

More than 23 million people are currently in need of humanitarian support in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan and South Sudan, after four failed rainy seasons over the last two years, Concern Worldwide said in a statement issued late Monday.

“Worryingly, early forecasts indicate that the main rainy season this October-December will also fail,” it said, adding that an estimated number of 5 million children in the region are malnourished, with 1.6 million experiencing severe malnutrition, putting their lives at risk.

During the drought of 2011 in the region, 13 million people needed humanitarian support, in a famine which resulted in 260,000 deaths in Somalia. Currently, there are 17 million people in need of humanitarian support in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia — and this figure is expected to rise to 20 million by September, according to the organization.

ALSO READ: World Bank approves $129mn grant for South Sudan

On Monday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations appealed for 172 million U.S. dollars in assistance to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe in the Horn of Africa region.

FAO, in a press release statement, said it needs 219 million U.S. dollars to prevent a deterioration of food security conditions in the region, but only 47 million U.S. dollars of the needed funds have been mobilized so far. It highlighted the funds appeal is, in particular, focused on four drought epicenters in the region that are Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.

Drought conditions, particularly across many parts of the Horn of Africa region, are crippling food production, depleting pastures, disrupting markets, and even causing widespread human and animal deaths, according to the United Nations.