Hope Advocates Africa Localises The Generation Equality campaign to Women and Girls in Mboma Fishing Port

After the Generation Equality forums in Mexico and France which was mainly hybrid with very few in person participants, there was a need to ensure that every woman and girl in all parts of the well is engaged in the Generation Equality campaign which is a campaign aimed at Realizing women’s rights for an equal future. This she returned home to ensure that this campaign reaches the four corners of her country Cameroon.

Under the banner of her organization Hope Advocates Africa, Ms. Caryn Dasah who is also a Generation equality Leader and Member of the Generation Equality Youth task force under took activities to Localise the Generation Equality campaign has taken it to Mboma fishing Port – South west Region of Cameroon.
This campaign which was first launched in Garoua, Northern region and Mora in the Far North Region of Cameroon which are regions which have been greatly affected by armed conflict.
It is no doubt that during armed conflict violence against women and girls are heightened. Coupled with the out break of the Corona virus pandemic which exacerbated the already existing inequalities especially in the regions affected by armed conflict.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, participation was limited to 50 women. A working session was held to introduce participants to the concept of the Generation Equality campaign, the six action coalitions and the compact on women peace and security and humanitarian actions.

Twenty-five years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action of 1995 (Beijing Platform for Action) which is the most visionary agenda for the empowerment of women and girls, everywhere.

UN Women developed the Generation Equality campaign, which a visionary campaign to advance the rights of women and girls for an equal future.
For the past two years, governments, UN entities, Youths and civil society have been working towards the organizing the Generation Equality forum, get commitment maker, design action coalitions which will ensure progress in the human rights of women and girls for the next five years.

At the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China known as the largest-ever gathering of gender equality advocates. The Beijing Platform for Action was adopted by 189 governments committed to taking strategic, bold action in 12 critical areas of concern: poverty, education and training, health, violence, armed conflict, economy, power and decision-making, institutional mechanisms, human rights, media, environment, and the girl child, yet women and girls still face discrimination and with the advent of social media which was not a priority issue during the era of the where the Beijing declaration and platform for action was conceived.

The Beijing Platform for Action set out how to remove the systemic barriers that hold women back from equal participation in all areas of life, whether in public or in private. Despite some progress, real change has been agonizingly slow for the majority of women and girls in the world. Today, not a single country can claim to have achieved gender equality. Multiple obstacles remain unchanged in law and in culture.

UN Women stands at the center of mobilising governments and civil societies to keep the promises of the Beijing Platform for Action to all of society. In everything it does, it is committed to making gender equality a lived reality for all women and girls who have historically been marginalized and who have waited long enough.

This is a vision of a more prosperous, peaceful and fair world that is ultimately better for both women and men alike. UN Women brought together the next generations of women’s rights activists with the gender equality advocates and visionaries who were instrumental in creating the Beijing Platform for Action more than two decades ago.

Collectively, these change makers of all ages and genders can tackle the unfinished business of empowering women through a new, groundbreaking, multigenerational campaign: “Generation Equality: Realising women’s rights for an equal future”.

Young people are imagining a world where all people have equal rights and opportunities. Women and girls are not afraid of walking home late at night, and men and boys are not trapped in oppressive masculinities. In this world, gender equality is the norm. Men and women get paid equally for work of equal value and share the care work at home.

“We are equally Imagining equality in political leadership, classrooms, corporate boardrooms, and factory floors. Women and girls having equal say in decisions that affect their lives, their bodies, their policies, and their environment, from villages to cities”,

“To make it a reality, we envisage launching the Generation Equality campaign in all ten regions of the country targeting young girls and boys and decision makers to join in accelerating the promises for the respect and full enjoyment of the rights of women and girls in Cameroon” Caryn Dasah said.

The Generation Equality campaign demands equal pay, equal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work, an end to sexual harassment and all forms of violence against women and girls, health-care services that respond to their needs, and their equal participation in political life and decision-making in all areas of life. The team expounded on the six action coalitions which includes; Gender-Based Violence, Economic justice and rights, Bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health rights(SRHR) Feminist action for climate justice.

Technology and innovation for gender equality
Feminist movements and leadership

This was an interactive session as participants were eager to ask question of the Campaign Organizer regarding the role in in championing the Generation Equality campaign in their school, homes and communities.

The second phase of activities was a pad drive activity where hope advocates Africa distributed which sanitary towels to these young women which marked the end the Generation Equality Champion in mboma.