Holding hands in SOS Children's Villages Bujumbura, Burundi

  Holding hands in SOS Children's Villages Bujumbura, Burundi  

I've been finding out about the situation of women in Burundi:  

Around 90 % of Burundi's estimated 7.2 million inhabitants are living in rural areas. Local traditions there are complicating the process of establishing gender equality and ensuring various basic rights for girls and women. Apart from that, Burundi has been shaken by socio-economic crises for more than a decade. During this time, violations of human rights have been common and thousands have lost their lives.

As more men than women were killed, the number of widows (26 % of the female population) and unmarried women has increased dramatically. Many of these women were forced to become heads of households and support orphans, a role for which they were not prepared. Today, women constitute the vast majority of people living below the poverty line in Burundi.

Official framework: Burundi is an active mamber of the United Nations and among Africa's leading countries when it comes to ratifying and implementing UN agreements and resolutions aiming at strengthening the role of women in society. For instance, Burundi ratified the agreement on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1979.

Burundi also adhered to the resolutions and recommendations of the world conferences on women and on population and development, to the millennium objectives for development and to various resolutions concerning the protection of women such as UN resolution 1325 on women and armed conflicts.

There are some gaps in the national legislation when it, for instance, comes to the protection of women against violence or to their right of inheriting property. On the other hand, girls and women officially have the same rights of accessing schools and health care institutions as boys and men. Nevertheless, even in these respects there is still a huge discrepance between the official situation and the actual situation of many women, especially in rural areas.

Education:When the school system was established in Burundi, only boys were accepted to school. It was several decades later that girls got the right to go to school. Today, there is, officially, no gender discrimination when it comes to school education. However, two key factors prevent girls from going to school like boys.

- Sociocultural factors: A certain mentality keeps girls exclusively in the mother's and wife's roles. Thery are initiated only into domestic and rural works very early, to be well prepared once she is married. - Financial factors. Many parents cannot afford the high school fees and the costs of stationeries. In these conditions, not all children can go to school and the parents always privilege boys. In rural areas, even though the girls go to school, the heavy workload of women obliges them to resort to their daughters. The girls have to leave school to accompany their mothers to the fields, to the river (to fetch water) or simply to prepare the meal at home.

During the last 25 years, several actions were taken to increase the schooling rate of girls. Nevertheless, the statistics available show that the school rate of the girls always remains lower than that of the boys. The disparities between the two genders are still strong, even though the distance begins to decrease.

Gender inequalities: The Burundian tradition favours inequalities between men and women. The distribution of roles within the family follows precise rules which are already prepared and applied at a very early age. The little boy always benefits from a special treatment. He is educated to become a responsible man who is leading a family or community and takes the relevant decisions.

The education given to the girl prepares her basically for the role of a wife, mother and housewife whose tasks are limited to upbringing children and doing rural and domestic work. She practically has no rights, but a lot of duties.

In rural areas, women play the leading role in economy but they cannot decide on the use of income they are generating. In Burundi, the right to land ownership belongs to the man only. The tradition according to which the daughter is not allowed to inherit property from her father is also reflected in the current legislation. A bill exists on successions and matrimonial systems, but it is not yet adopted.

Women and health: A precarious and worrisome situation

Women's health is threatened by gynaecological cancers, anaemia, malnutrition and deficiency of iodine, but the essential causes of mortality are connected to pregnancy and childbirth. The majority of women don't go to the hospital for childbirth. They give birth at home without assistance of a trained and qualified person, in pitiful sanitary conditions and without any means of professional intervention in case of complication.

This situation is often caused by the high cost of health care, the long distances between homes and hospitals and the lack of qualified medical doctors. In Burundi, children are considered a gift of God, a blessing, but also a free workforce; this is why campaigns for family planning were not successful so far. The indication of fertility is six children per woman. The babies' mortality rate which was 110 per thousand in 1990 passed to 129 per thousand in 2000.

HIV/AIDS is also an alarming threat for women's health. An inquiry from 2002 reveals that women (13 % prevalence rate in urban areas, 2.9 % in rural areas) are struck more than men (6.8 % / 2.1 % in urban/rural). Some of the factors favouring the propagation of the pandemic are: The lack of information and councils in sexuality, sexual precociousness, prostitution, early marriages and sexual violence.

Violence against women

Burundian women and girls are victims of verbal, physical, sexual and psychological violence; this violence took a catastrophic dimension lately. Its consequences are manifesting in infections and chronic diseases, sexual confusion, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, psychic traumatism and mental illness and sometimes lead to women's suicide.

Domestic violence committed by the husband is often accepted by the woman who finds herself, under the influence of tradition, in a state of total economic dependency and submission. During the war, rape was used as a weapon. According to a study done in 1999 on marital violence, 42 % of the women have already been victims of violence. Another study from 2004 revealed that the most threatened females are girls, widows and women in cohabitation.

In spite of this worrisome situation, there is no law on violence against women in general, and on sexual violence in particular. A study from 2004 reveals that men who committed rape are hardly ever punished. Very few of them are pursued by the police, and only 16 % of the cases arrive at court. Most of the cases are dealt with by local - male - leaders.