The Removal of the Reservation on the Women’s Protocol is Great - Dr Isatou Touray
Friday 5th May 2006

The Gambia Cultural Group on Traditional Practices (GAMCOTRAP), recently held a press conference at its office on the removal of the Reservation on the Women’s protocol by the National Assembly.

Speaking at the conference, the Secretary General for GAMCOTRAP, Dr. Isatou Touray, expressed appreciation and thanks to the government of The Gambia for taking the bold step to give the women’s bill full ratification. The protocol, she said popularly known as the Maputo Protocol is the regional consensus adopted from CEDAW to respond to issues of African women and their rights. “Therefore it is a very important and culturally relevant instrument that has taken account of the African reality to address the human rights of women and girls in the context of our culture and traditions. The Maputo Protocol therefore is the true reflection of the realities of African women’” she said.

To arrive at this document, Dr Touray noted, a lot of consultation, was undertaken at international, regional and sub-regional levels with critical analyses of the issues raised by the protocol. She added that all the factors such as religion, culture and other issues which might be inimical to the rights of women were dealt with. The gaps and loopholes that CEDAW had, were also taken into account and which resulted in the optional protocol, she revealed.

Dr Touray however congratulated the National Assembly members for the noble job they have done to ratify the African protocol on women’s rights, which indeed, she pointed out was not an easy task working within a male dominated National Assembly, to push a strategic agenda for women.

“Amidst this constraint we have forged ahead to provide the right information to empower our National Assembly members to make the informed choices to promote and protect the rights of women and children. One of the reasons given for placing reservations on the articles was limited understanding of some of the issues therein. With this in view, GAMCOTRAP then set a plan of action to train the NAMS about the contents of the protocol and its implications. The series of training programmes directed at the NAMS have resulted in adopting a systems approach to advocate for the ratification of the protocol. It therefore means that the recommendations which emanated from the training programmes we had undertaken with the NAMS, resulted in following on other target groups such as religious leaders, chiefs, and alkalolu, who are all critical decision makers.”

This she disclosed was based on adopting a right based approach where rights education was the methodology they embraced during their awareness creation activities.

This approach, Dr Touray noted, led to a cumulative result which paved the way for a critical engagement of civil society in the debate on FGM and other harmful traditional practices affecting the health of women and children.

Dr Touray went on to say that a constructive dialogue with the NAMS was initiated to revisit the reservations that were made on the very articles that actually constitute the lifeblood of women’s rights. These articles are 5,6,7, and 14 she added. “It was these articles that had reservations and contestations. With education and awareness comes change, and indeed the type of knowledge which resulted in the training and information campaigns throughout the country. And finally we have seen the result of this in the Gambia. The choices that the NAMS finally made are indeed great.”