The East African Legislative Assembly sitting in Kigali for the fifth session of the Third Assembly from March 6-16, used the International Women’s Day marked on March 8, to pass a Bill that will among other things protect women and children against gender-based violence, force EAC partner states to provide free primary and secondary school education for all, and protect the rights of civilians during war.

“There is a need to make primary and secondary education compulsory, accessible, all inclusive and available for free to all considering the pupil-teacher ratios,” said the chairperson of the committee on general purposes Dr Odette Nyiramilimo.

The general purpose committee handled consultations on the Bill with the partner states. If the region’s presidents assent to it, their governments will be required to provide universal free primary and secondary education. Most EAC partner states are already implementing a form of free primary education.

The law will also make EAC partner states more accountable for the deaths and plunder that governments through their armed forces mete out when there is internal conflict.

Human rights abuses

“In circumstances where conflicts have occurred, and in times of armed and other conflicts, partner states must take such steps as are necessary to prevent and eliminate incidents of human rights abuses,” reads the Bill.

This Bill will affect countries where security forces have orders to shoot and kill civilians.
Civil society organisations are excited that the region can now take to task South Sudan and Burundi, where recent conflicts have been followed by reports of human right abuses by government forces.

Nuliat Nambazira, the communication and networking officer at the Eastern African Sub Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women said that with the passing of this law, the EAC can hold partner states accountable.

In South Sudan for example, Human Rights Watch notes in its report that in 2016, government soldiers killed, raped, tortured and pillaged civilians’ property in a number of operations across the country. It notes that soldiers of the government of South Sudan killed, raped and tortured civilians as well as destroyed and pillaged civilian property during counterinsurgency operations in the southern and western parts of the country, and that both sides of the civil conflict committed abuses against civilians in and around Juba and other areas.

Burundi crisis

In Burundi, the political and human rights crisis that gripped the country the previous year deepened in 2016, as security forces and intelligence services often collaborated with members of the ruling party’s youth league, the Imbonerakure, to kill, abduct, torture, rape and arbitrarily arrest perceived opponents of the government.

According to Francine Muhimpundu, a Burundian refugee currently living at Nakivale settlement in western Uganda, women bore the brunt of the conflict as they were raped and humiliated in front of their families.

Ms Muhimpundu added that the government also denied orphans and widows the chance to bury their male relatives who had been killed for being considered opponents of the ruling party.
Source: The East African