March 20, 2002: To view final Kampala document, please click here.

March 11, 2002

SHRO-Cairo received the following tentative program from Ustaza Muna Khugali, Coordinator of the Sudan National Women's Convention, which meets in Kampala between the 11th and the 15th of March, 2002.

Ustaza Ihsan Al-Gaddal, the SHRO-Cairo Representative at this important Conference, has kindly agreed to send a report on the major activities of the Conference. The Gaddal's Report will be published in our Web Site, as well as the Sudanese Lists. To view the final Kampala document, please click here.

Sudan National Women’s Convention

Narrative Programme

Day 1: Monday 11 March 2002

Morning: Opening session
Welcome from Pan African Movement
Opening Statement from Government of Uganda, Minister for Gender
Keynote address by the Chairman of Civil Forum of Sudan
Introduction to the Convention by the coordinators

This opening session will set the scene for the convention, and will set out the agenda and plan of action for the following days.

Afternoon: Plenary 1: Personal Law and Customary Law

In this, the first Plenary of the Convention, two leading speakers will outline the main challenges of ensuring that Sudan’s personal law and customary laws are compatible with human rights. The speakers will lay down the main challenges of bringing Sudan’s laws and judicial systems into line with international standards of human rights and the aspirations of Sudanese women.

This session will include 2 workshops:

Workshop 1: Islamic Personal Law and its Compatibility with International Human Rights Standards
Workshop 2: Personal Customary Law and its Compatibility with International Human Rights Standards

In each of these workshops, there will be a short panel discussion summarising the main points at issue, followed by an open discussion resulting in specific recommendations to be brought back to the plenary.

Evening: Special lecture

Two leading figures from the Sudan women’s movement will present their personal experiences.

Presenters:

Day 2: Tuesday 12 March 2002

Morning: Plenary 2: The Women’s Movement in Sudan: Historical Perspective

In this plenary session, the main challenges facing the women’s movement in Sudan will be outlined. The presenters will outline the history of the women’s movement before the war and how the war has impacted on the movement. It will be an opportunity for a wide range of women activists and women’s organisations to lay out how they have sought to defend and promote the rights of women. This will cover the struggle for women’s education, health and equality. It will showcase the leaders of Sudan’s women’s movement.

Plenary 3: Women’s Role in Peacemaking

This session will focus on the efforts by women to resist the hardships and abuses inflicted upon them by the war, especially in the South of Sudan but not forgetting the Nuba Mountains and the East. It will be an opportunity to review and analyse the involvement of women in peace initiatives, including the Netherlands Government-sponsored ‘engendering the peace’ initiative and the ‘people to people’ peace process within the South.

Afternoon: Plenary 4: Women’s Struggle to Achieve Human Rights

This session, also a plenary, will focus on how women’s organisations have resisted repression and human rights abuses. It will be an opportunity for women leaders to explain how they have mobilized women and women’s organisations to promote the rights of women despite the obstacles created by the Government and other political forces. The sufferings of displaced women and refugees will also be highlighted.

This session will break into 3 workshops:

Workshop 3: Displaced and refugee women
Workshop 4: Challenges for women’s NGOs
Workshop 5: Women’s access to justice

In each of these 3 workshops, there will be a short panel discussion summarising the main points at issue, followed by an open discussion resulting in specific recommendations to be brought back to the final plenary.

Day 3: Wednesday 13 March 2002

Morning: Plenary 5: Education, cultural rights and freedom of expression

Girls and women have the right to education and to freedom of expression. Two presentations will underline how Sudanese women are too often denied the right to educate themselves, and the wider negative impact of this denial, and the importance of women achieving their cultural rights to freely express themselves.

This session will break into 3 workshops that will report back to the plenary.

Workshop 6: Promoting women’s artistic and cultural rights
Workshop 7: Expanding girls’ access to basic education
Workshop 8: Women and higher education

Afternoon: Plenary 7: Women’s Health

It is a basic right of women to achieve health. But there are severe obstacles standing in the way of Sudanese women achieving this right. Sudan’s health services are inadequate and badly-managed. Rural areas and the war-affected regions are deprived. Women often suffer malnutrition and many preventable diseases. Female circumcision is widely practiced leading to many health problems. AIDS is increasingly a major health problem for women.

This session will break into the following workshops:

Workshop 9: Female circumcision: how should it be combatted?
Workshop 10: Women and AIDS
Workshop 11: Increasing access to health services

The workshops will report back to the plenary session.

Evening: Plenary 8: Women Victims of Violence

Women are subjected to violence, both at home, in public and in the war zones. This session will begin with three short presentations that highlight the dangers faced by women and their lack of protection from domestic violence, violence perpetrated by the police and other officers of the state, and lastly the risks faced by women in war zones.

This session will break into the following workshops which will report back:

Workshop 12: Women’s access to the courts for redress
Workshop 13: Women in prison
Workshop 14: Services for women victims of violence and rape
Workshop 15: Protecting women in the war zones

Day 4: Thursday 14 March 2002

Morning: Plenary 9: Women’s economic rights including employment

Women in Sudan suffer from poverty and deprivation, arising both from the general economic crisis in Sudan, and from discrimination at the hands of the state, political forces and men in general. Current laws discriminate against women regarding employment opportunities. This session will focus on the current economic situation of Sudanese women and the need to rectify this.

This session will break into the following workshops:

Workshop 16: Women and financial services
Workshop 17: Women and employment law
Workshop 18: Relief and development: what role for women’s NGOs?

Afternoon: Plenary 9: the Way Ahead

The first half of the afternoon will be an opportunity for the participants to discuss their plans for follow-up to the Convention.

Closed meetings

The second half of the afternoon will include:

(a) A closed meeting for the rapporteurs and secretariat to draft their final recommendations. Representatives of the different groups present at the Convention will also be able to discuss the final document. The rapporteurs will also decide their questions for the Political Leaders’ Forum on the final day.

Day 5: Friday 15 March 2002

Morning: Adoption of Final Documents

In this session, the final documents drawn up the previous afternoon will be adopted.

Political Leaders’ Forum

In the final session, leaders of the political parties and other forces present will form a panel, and will take questions from the participants. The initial questions will be posed by the rapporteurs of Workshops 1-9, who will have the opportunity to put one question each.