Kwambis lead the way in gender equality

THE Uukwambi Traditional Autho-rity (UTA) has made great strides in putting women into leadership positions.

This is one of the findings of Dutch researcher Dr Janine Ubink, who recently did a five-month study on the customary legal empowerment of women in Uukwambi Traditional Authority in the Oshana and Omusati regions.She presented the findings of her study in Windhoek yesterday.Ubink said in many traditional setups, most traditional leaders are men, traditional dispute settlement pro-cesses are dominated by men and the normative framework favours men.But, she said, after Independence the Uukwambi Traditional Authority initiated changes on all three these aspects.’There is an active promotion of female traditional leadership, customary dispute settlement processes are no longer dominated by men and one well-known example of a change in the normative framework is found in the protection of widows after the death of their husbands against eviction from house and land by the husbands’ family,’ said Ubink, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.She said since Independence, the head of the UTA, Chief Herman Iipumbu, has been appointing female leaders in their own right at the level of the traditional authority as well as encouraging their appointment at district and village levels.This, she said, has led to a number of female traditional leaders, adding that in Uukwambi women now actively take part in court proceedings and are constantly encouraged to do so by traditional leaders.’In many villages, women now form the majority during court meetings,’ she said. Ubink said on the protection of widows against eviction, she found that the traditional authority is supporting Government’s view that a widow has the right to stay on land after the death of her husband.She said the UTA is a formidable force in the fight for gender equa-lity in Namibia and should inspire other traditional authorities to do the same. Ubink said for someone to become a chief in Uukwambi, it does not matter whether his or her parents were leaders, because leaders are selected openly.She said in many Uukwambi villages the deputy chief is a woman.Her research was carried out in conjunction with Women’s Action for Development (WAD) and the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC). WAD Executive Director Veronica de Klerk said although the changes in the Uukwambi Traditional Authority to a certain extent were witnessed in other traditional authorities in the North too, the combined effect and enthusiasm with which they are undertaken in the UTA ‘make the traditional authority a formidable forerunner in Namibia.’