WILDAF-WA had, from 7th to 9th June 2010, held its exchange meeting at regional level with actors involved in the implementation of its project “using law for rural women’s empowerment in West Africa”.

Started in January 2009 for a period of 30 months, this project aims at enabling rural farmer paralegals, members of farmer organisation and women from the rural areas of the beneficiary countries namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo to know their rights, to claim them so as to be able to enjoy them in the same way as men in their family, community and professional lives and to have them enforced in favour of women in their respective communities.

The Lomé meeting should enable the nearly thirty participants involved in the implementation of field actions to exchange and discuss strategies, good practices, achieved results, difficulties, failures and prospects. “Convinced that poverty has obvious links with women’s rights violations and that the knowledge and use of rights by women may be an efficient means of empowerment and of fighting poverty, we resolved together to face a certain number of challenges… One year before the end of our project, it is important for us to meet for exchanging and learning from our respective experiences so that we can maximise the chances of making our project successful” said Mrs Kafui Adjamagbo-Johnson, WILDAF-WA sub regional coordinator in her opening speech.

Presiding over the opening ceremony, the new Minister of Women’s Promotion, Mrs Henriette Kouevi-Amédjogbé promised all her support in order to reach the objectives of the project “I would like to ensure you about my department’s availability to accompany you in reaching results not only in Togo but also in the West African sub region”. The Minister also spoke to the Togolese women participants in the same terms “I can reassure you that the new department I have the honour crest to lead … will take the commitment, in accordance with the recommendations of the National Forum of Togolese Women that took place in December 2009, to advocate for the drafting of a land code which will take into account the women’s right to access land ….”

Mr Dindiogue Kolani, representing the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock Production and Fishing, said that the project initiative and the meeting were welcome because the results will bring contributions to the thinking that was on at the ministry’s level for reforms.

The exchanges between the participants revealed that 250 women farmers benefited from the different paralegal trainings. They are daily trying to use the acquired knowledge for claiming the rights recognised to them for getting out of situations they are not satisfied with. In turn, they have succeeded in convincing both women and men, including some local authorities of their respective communities, to commit themselves into committees that fight against violence against women. Their common sensitisation actions through chat sessions, sketches, targeted meetings have touched more than 50,000 men and women in the five countries. Various themes were discussed during the sensitisation sessions. These themes range from economic rights to political ones through conjugal violence. Concretely, more than 600 cases of violation have been received and dealt with by the paralegal farmers.

Regarding women’s access to land, studies carried out in the framework of the project have shown that, except in Togo, the legal framework, though perfectible, is favourable because there are no discriminatory provisions against women’s access to land. The difficulties for women to accede to land bear on the enforcement of the texts and on the populations’ resilience to new practices. Nevertheless, cultivable land have been negotiated and obtained in favour of women groups as donations, or long lasting rents. In Burkina Faso for example, the paralegals’ advocacy actions near the customary chiefs or landowners have resulted in the allocation of a total land surface of 45 hectares to fifteen women groups. In nearly all the five countries, the paralegals’ interventions have helped women to recover their rights after many years of unlawful withdrawals and retentions. The procedure is on for the securing all these lands.

Regarding rural women’s participation in decision making, results are not yet encouraging. Nevertheless, in nearly all the countries, paralegals are very active on the field in order to better organise women for their positioning. In Togo and Benin, for example, women demanded and obtained a 30% quota for women within the Boards of Directors of local farmer organisations. This opening offers them the opportunity to position themselves little by little at local, national and regional levels. The debates on punctual evidences from one another and the exchange of experiences on the good and less good practices enabled not only participants to encourage each other mutually but, beyond, to take conscience of all the importance of their actions in their respective communities.

However, discussions revealed that everything did not move without difficulties. Different factors have been invoked: socio-cultural constraints, religious beliefs, social pressure on paralegals and victims of the violations of women’s rights, dysfunctions and the lack of commitment to women’s rights observed in both men and women who lead state institutions and services involved in the implementation of women’s rights, the insufficiency of financial resources available for the paralegals and communities’ actions. Some planned strategies have not worked on the field or have not resulted in the expected outcomes.

At the end of the proceedings, participants, more determined than ever, took the commitment to intensify their actions so that, at the end of the project, the expected results are fully attained. To that effect, they decided, among others things, to:

- multiply the number of sensitisations regarding the most recurrent violations in their communities;
- address the cases of violence against women with more legal rigour ;
  intensify advocacy actions where it is necessary for reforms;
- initiate chat sessions that would exclusively target traditional authorities and landowners;
- to make information about procedures for obtaining title deeds available to rural populations, particularly to women groups;
- continue building the personal capacities of women farmers, key persons in the project.