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INVITATION ADRESSÉE AUX CITOYENS DE LA SADC À PARTICIPER À DES AUDIENCES PUBLIQUES SUR DES QUESTIONS D'INTÉRÊT ET DE PRÉOCCUPATION RÉGIONAUX

Les comités permanents du Forum parlementaire de la SADC tiendront des audiences publiques virtuelles sur diverses questions d'intérêt et de préoccupation régionaux du 25 au 28 novembre 2022 sous le thème « CONSOLIDER LA DEMOCRATIE EN RAPPROCHANT LE PARLEMENT AU PEUPLE ».

Alors que les auditions publiques constituent un outil utilisé par les parlements au niveau national pour promouvoir l'interaction publique sur les projets de loi ou les questions qui peuvent potentiellement constituer un instrument législatif, le Forum, agissant par le biais de ses organes, souhaite avoir une interface directe avec les citoyens de la SADC afin qu'ils puissent contribuer directement aux processus de prise de décision au sein des comités thématiques. Conformément à l'objectif du Forum de promouvoir la démocratie participative à travers les délibérations de ses comités, le Forum invite les membres du public ou leurs organisations représentatives à se présenter virtuellement devant les comités de la SADC-PF pour exposer oralement leurs préoccupations et leurs doléances dans le cadre des fonctions législatives, budgétaires, de contrôle ou de représentation des parlements. Les membres du public peuvent également soumettre leurs déclarations complètes par écrit au Forum après avoir donné leur compte rendu oral en version abrégée.

Les citoyens et les organisations de la société civile de la SADC sont donc invités à participer aux auditions publiques en vue de faire leurs déclarations orales aux différents Comités permanents sur la base des questions thématiques d'intérêt comme indiqué dans le tableau ci-dessous. En fonction de leurs demandes, les citoyens se verront allouer du temps pour faire des présentations formelles devant le comité permanent concerné.

Les demandes de déclarations orales doivent être adressées à l'adresse électronique suivante : , dans l'une des trois langues officielles, à savoir l'anglais, le français et le portugais, et doit indiquer clairement le sujet et le Comité permanent compétent auquel la soumission est adressée. Les demandes de déclarations orales seront examinées en fonction du sujet traité, selon le principe du premier arrivé, et en cas de sujet similaire, les déclarations écrites seront toujours autorisées. Veuillez noter que les déclarations orales seront limitées à 15 minutes.

 

INVITATION ADRESSÉE AUX CITOYENS DE LA SADC À PARTICIPER À DES AUDIENCES PUBLIQUES SUR DES QUESTIONS D'INTÉRÊT ET DE PRÉOCCUPATION RÉGIONAUX

INVITATION TO SADC CITIZENS TO PARTICIPATE IN PUBLIC HEARINGS ON MATTERS OF REGIONAL INTEREST AND CONCERN

The SADC Parliamentary Forum Standing Committees will hold virtual public hearings on various issues of regional interest and concern from 25th to 28th November 2022 under the theme “CONSOLIDATING DEMOCRACY BY BRINGING PARLIAMENT TO THE PEOPLE.”

 

Whilst public hearings constitute a tool used by Parliaments at national level to promote public interaction on Bills or issues which may potentially constitute a legislative instrument, the Forum acting through its organs, wishes to interface directly with SADC citizens so that they can contribute directly to decision-making processes on thematic committees. In line with the objective of the Forum to promote participatory democracy through its Committee deliberations, the Forum invites members of the public or their representative organisations to appear on the floor of the SADC-PF Committees virtually to give an oral account of their concerns and grievances within the remit of the legislative, budgetary, oversight or representative functions of parliaments. Members of the public may also submit their comprehensive statements in writing to the Forum after they have given their oral account in abridged version. 

SADC citizens and civil society organisations are therefore, invited to participate in public hearings in view of making their oral statements to the different Standing Committees based on the thematic issues of focus as shown in the table below. Based on their requests, citizens will be allocated time to make formal presentations to the relevant Standing Committee. 

Requests for oral statements should be made to the following email address: , in any of the three official languages, namely, English, French and Portuguese and should clearly indicate the subject matter and the relevant Standing Committee to which the submission is directed. Requests for oral statements will be considered in accordance with the subject matter on a first-come basis, and in case of similar subject matter, written statements will still be allowed. Please note that oral statements will be limited to 15 minutes.

Statements should focus on sharing experiences and making recommendations on concrete actions that Parliamentarians may take to influence legislative, oversight and budget and policy changes in view of improving the standard of living and quality of lives for SADC citizens.

DATE

TIME

COMMITTEE/S

PROPOSED THEMATIC ISSUES OF FOCUS

Friday 25th November 2022

11:00–16:30

Gender Equality, Women Advancement and Youth Development (GEWAYD) Committee

1. What are the areas where women struggle to find employment as compared to men, and why?

2. Are the salaries of men and women for equal jobs the same, and if not, why?

3. What are the main reasons for school drop-out of young girls?

4. Are practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)still common, and how do these affect the lives of women?

11:00–16:30

Human and Social Development and Special Programmes (HSDSP) Committee

1. Do women have sufficient access to sexual and reproductive health services, such as access to contraception or breast/cervical cancer screening?

2. Can women afford the cost of sanitary wear given the recent inflationary trends?

3. Are essential medicines, ARVs and prophylaxis for HIV/AIDS affordable? Are they widely available?

4. How much do out-of-pocket expenses compare to the income of citizens with regards to what they spend on health care?

11:00–16:30

Democratisation, Governance and Human Rights (DGHR) Committee

1. Are socio-economic human rights sufficiently protected (in particular the right to education and the right to housing)?

2. Do citizens have a say in the organisation of election processes to ensure fairness?

3. Is there freedom to access information about government affairs for accountability purposes?

4. Are access to citizen services hampered by the need to bribe public officials? How strong is the anti-corruption framework?

Saturday 26th November 2022

11:00–16:30

Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources (FANR) Committee

1. How can citizens be assisted to promote subsistence and bio-farming which is free from use of toxic fertilizers and pesticides?

2. How do countries become self-sufficient in agricultural products, that would also reduce import costs for the consumer?

3. What measures should be instilled to decrease the price of groceries for the end consumer?

4. Should citizens be encouraged to produce their own clean energy (wind or solar etc) as Independent power producers?

11:00–16:30

Trade, Industry, Finance, and Investment (TIFI) Committee

1. Are citizens given sufficient incentives to go into entrepreneurship and promote Small and Medium Enterprises?

2. Are investment vehicles provided by banks and deposit-taking institutions appealing to consumers? Are interest rates sufficient to cater for rising inflation?

3. Is there sufficient intra-trade in Africa? Do citizens have sufficient opportunities to craft products and export to neighbouring countries?

4. Is there sufficient generation of intellectual property in the SADC region? Are intellectual property rights sufficiently protected? How easy is it to file a patent for an African invention?

Sunday 27th November 2022

11:00–16:30

Regional Parliamentary Model Laws Oversight (RPMLOC) Committee

1. How has the SADC Model Law on Child Marriage assisted to mitigate child marriage?

2. How do citizens propose that the recently adopted SADC Model Law on Gender Based Violence be disseminated to them?

3. Which structures need to be put in place at domestic level to promote a speedy incorporation of Model Laws?

Monday 28th November 2022

11:00–16:30

Regional Women Parliamentary Caucus

1. How can citizens promote women participation in decision-making processes in the public sector at all levels?

2. Which measures may be put in place to increase women representation in Parliament to attain the 50-50 gender parity?

3. Should budgets passed in Parliament consider and mainstream women issues?

4. Which measures should be put in place to increase the representation of women in the boards of private corporations?

 

 

INVITATION TO SADC CITIZENS TO PARTICIPATE IN PUBLIC HEARINGS ON MATTERS OF REGIONAL INTEREST AND CONCERN

SECRETARY GENERAL REMARKS - VIRTUAL LAUNCH OF THE REPORT OF THE AFRICAN GOODWILL AMBASSADOR

AU GWA Report

Dear Colleagues and Distinguished Participants,

It is with undivided pleasure that I join you online in my capacity as Secretary General of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, on this august occasion, to both welcome and launch the report of the African Goodwill Ambassador on Ending Child Marriage.

At the onset, I wish to express solidarity with the African Goodwill Ambassador, Ms Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, who has been a beacon of light in the field of eradicating child marriages on the African continent and beyond since her appointment.
Ms Gumbonzvanda is a staunch partner of the SADC Parliamentary Forum and her contributions to the Forum's thematic committees to unpack strategies to eradicate child marriages are highly commendable. In the same vein, I also wish to thank the Rozaria Memorial Trust for contributing to this event which is of paramount important to the ending child marriage discourse.

As you may be aware, the eradication of child marriage in Africa has been a longstanding battle.

For recall, Eastern and Southern Africa is amongst the regions with the highest prevalence of child marriage in the world, with over 30 percent of women aged 20-24 years who were first married or in a union under the age of 18, whilst the global average stands at around 19%.

Indeed, the Forum and other partners including the AU Goodwill Ambassador have been assiduously working over the past years to end child marriages by upscaling laws, budgets, and oversight activities which could mitigate or altogether eliminate child marriage, whether in urban or rural settings.

Furthermore, the Forum considers that child marriage is interlinked with several contraventions of human rights, including the right to physical integrity, the right to health, the right to education as well as the right to be free from any torture or inhuman and degrading treatment.

At the end of the day, child marriage is a practice which goes against contemporary societal norms and principles and it is a repressive practice that disproportionately affects young girls. In addition, child marriage leads to other pernicious issues such as unintended or forced pregnancies, unsafe abortion, school dropouts, early and unprepared motherhood, to cite but a few repercussions.

As well highlighted in the Report, child marriage is an issue which cannot be looked at in isolation, but must be considered in a comprehensive manner, with the dire consequences of child marriage always going beyond the scope of mere matrimonial links.

In Southern Africa, the Forum notes the progress made in Zimbabwe with the passing of the Marriage Act, and in Mauritius with the enactment and proclamation of the Children's Act, the latter being in operative force since January 2022. Both progressive legislations prohibit child marriages and ensure that the legal age for marriage is fixed at 18, which also coincides with the age of adulthood. The penalty for not complying with such legal provisions is an offence which is of criminal nature. Yet, while progress has been made in certain areas in Africa regarding laws to prohibit child marriage, there is room for improvement and a lot remains to be done, as highlighted in the Report.

The Report also addresses the strategies to end child marriage and challenges encountered. Whilst I express solidarity to the findings of the Report, I wish to reiterate the importance of addressing promptly legal and policy frameworks to end child marriage.

An observation made at the Forum is that with the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent inflationary rise in the cost of living, there were instances where Governments could not prioritise issues such as gender inequality and child marriage, even if those issues were equally important to preserve the social fabric.

There is thus a need for reprioritization of agendas and the Report launched today will be an enormous value addition to revive the momentum in that direction.

In this juncture, I wish to also encourage participants and stakeholders present to continue collaborating with the Forum in our initiatives to domesticate the SADC Model Law on Child Marriage which was adopted by the Plenary Assembly of the Forum in 2016. To date, the Model Law is in process of domestication and it has served as guiding benchmark to prohibit child marriages in several SADC countries already.

The Model Law clearly calls for the eradication of child marriage and child betrothals and the protection of children already in marriage. Under the Model Law, Member States are to fix the legal age of marriage at 18 years old, whether civil or religious marriages, and to ensure that there is a free and informed consent at the time of marriage.

The Model Law on Child Marriage also attempts to plug in other loopholes which relate to the rights of the child such as the right to education and to equal protection under the law, and in this respect has benchmarked on existing regional instruments such as the African Charter on the Rights of the Child.

Furthermore, the Model Law also provides for the creation of special budgetary provisions to combat child marriage, including an anti-child marriage fund which authorities can tap into to sponsor regular sensitisation campaigns in view of ending child marriages.

As we gather here today, the SADC Model Law on Child Marriage is still an effective tool for domestication of legal and administrative norms to eradicate child marriage, and has proved its influence to accelerate domestication endeavours on several occasions.

At the Forum, we recommend that the Model Law should be domesticated in conjunction with the wise guidance and recommendations of our like-minded partners, including those contained in the report of the African Goodwill Ambassador.

I wish to end by stating that the Report is a live document which should be used consistently for policy engagements. In this regard, I invite partners to join the public hearings that are scheduled from the 25th to the 29th of November, 2022 virtually, to make representations before your regional MP's, It is understood that elected representatives must continually interact with their constituents over the elected period, failing which there will be an asymmetry between citizen's wishes and parliamentary action. Email for submission is , refer to attached programme.

Let us continue actively engaging with MPs through the Forum and with national Parliaments so that the findings of the Report are not put to rest, but are made actionable and are promptly implemented.

Parliaments are agents of change, and citizens elect their representatives to support the change that they want to see. Regular feedback from the citizenry on the changes they want to see to eradicate child marriage is thus important and in line with the principles of participatory democracy.

With these words, I thank you all for your kind attention.

Thank you.

**

Ms B.Sekgoma,

SG, SADC-PF

31st October 2022

 


 

DATE

MEETING

TIME

 

Monday

21 Nov

Arrival of SADC PF Secretariat

 

All day

Tuesday

22 Nov

Arrival of Clerks/Secretaries General of Parliaments

All day

Wednesday

23 Nov

 

Meeting of Clerks/Secretaries General

 

09:00 - 17:00

Thursday

24 Nov

 

Meeting of Clerks/Secretaries General (Continues)

 

Arrival of Members of GEWAYD, HSDSP and DGHR Standing Committees

09:00 - 17:00

Friday

25 Nov

· Statutory Meeting of the Standing Committee on Gender Equality, Women Advancement and Youth Development (GEWAYD)

· Statutory Meeting of the Standing Committee on Human and Social Development & Special Programmes (HSDSP)

· Statutory Meeting of the Standing Committee on Democratisation, Governance and Human Rights (DGHR)

  • Arrival of Members of FANR and TIFI Standing Committees

 

  • Arrival of all other Committee Members

 

09:00 - 17:00

Saturday

26 Nov

· Statutory Meeting of the Standing Committee on Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR)

· Statutory Meeting of the Standing Committee on Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment (TIFI)

09:00 - 17:00

Sunday

27 Nov

 

· Statutory Meeting of the Regional Parliamentary Model Laws Oversight Committee (RPMLOC)

 

09:00 - 17:00

Monday

28 Nov

· Statutory Meeting of the Regional Women's Parliamentary Caucus (RWPC)

09:00 - 17:00

Tuesday 29th Nov

· Joint Meeting of all Standing Committees and RWPC

 

09:00- 17:00

Dear Colleagues/partners,

It is with immense pleasure that I release this statement to the Forum’s distinguished Member Parliaments and partners in view of celebrating the International Day of Girl Child on this 11th October 2022.  

STATEMENT FROM THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE SADC-PF ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL CHILD 11TH OCTOBER 2022

Chers collègues et partenaires,

C'est avec un immense plaisir que je tiens à communiquer cette déclaration aux distingués parlements membres et partenaires du Forum, en vue de la célébration de la Journée internationale de la fille en ce jour du 11 octobre 2022.

DÉCLARATION DE LA SECRÉTAIRE GÉNÉRALE DE LA SADC-FP À L'OCCASION DE LA JOURNÉE INTERNATIONALE DE LA JEUNE FILLE LE 11 OCTOBRE 2022

À propos de nous

Le Forum parlementaire de la Communauté de développement de l'Afrique australe (SADC PF) a été créé en 1997 conformément à l'article 9 (2) du Traité de la SADC en tant qu'institution autonome de la SADC. Il s'agit d'un organe interparlementaire régional composé de treize (14) parlements représentant plus de 3500 parlementaires dans la région de la SADC.

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