English - African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights

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a wife will be able to contract, litigate, register property in her name, act as a trustee ofan insolvent estate. be a director of a company and bind herself as suretyLesotho has drawn a draft National Policy on Gender and Development. Theobjectives of the Gender Policy are:• to ensure equal opportunity and participation by men and women in thedevelopment process in order to promote a better standard of living for all.• to ensure equal access to and control over resources such as labour, income,education and training;• to ensure that fair and equal gender sensitive laws exist and are enforced;• to set up comprehensive programmes of gender training and gender awareness.complemented by regular periodic assessment, monitoring and dissemination ofinformation to all sectors of society;• to redirect allocation of resources and public expenditure to make them equallyavailable to men and women;• to raise public awareness and promote understanding of the link betweengender equality and development through the media;• to ensure equal opportunities and participation in decision making.The draft gender policy also provides strategies to achieve equality of opportunitybetween men and women. It is worth mentioning that this policy is still in debateLesotho ratified the convention on the Elimination of All Forms of DiscriminationAgainst Women (CEDAW) on the 22 August 1995. CEDAW was ratified with areservation to Article 2. This reservation was made by the Government of Lesotho dueto some religious denominations that had reservations about women being ordainedpriests and thus occupying high levels of authority within the church institution and alsoabout substantive succession to chieftainship and Monarchy. Efforts are being made touplift this reservation on religious institutions.(d) FOREIGN SERVICERegulation 1423 of the Foreign Service Regulations of 1969 provides that a man "hointends to marry shall notify the Minister of Foreign Affairs of his intention to do sowhereas a woman who marries a foreigner. while in the foreign service has to resign h outwork unless the Minister of Foreign Affairs directs othem ise.
A revision has been made to this regulation. The draft amendment puts more emphasison the right of officers to respect for private and family life. It was thereforerecommended that any officer, who intends to marry, while in the foreign service, inaydo so, unless it would not be in the interests of defence, public safety, public order, publichealth or public morality or for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of otherpersons as elaborated in section 11 (1)and (2) of the Lesotho Constitution 1993. Thisregulation has, however, not yet come into force.1.12 POWER SHARING BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN AT ALL LEVELSOF DECISION MAKING(a)The SenateSection 54 of the Constitution of Lesotho stipulates that there shall be a Parliament whichshall consist of the King and the Senate and National Assembly. Women are a minorityin both Houses of Parliament. The Senate consists of twenty-two Principal Chiefs andeleven nominated members.Of the twenty-two Principal seven are women. These women are not Principal Chiefs.but they are in the Senate because they are either acting for their minor sons or theirhusbands who have died or have been suspended from office. Out of the elevennominated members, only three are women.(b)The National AssemblyThe National Assembly is currently made up of eighty elected members. Of these onlyfour are v omen. Neither the Constitution nor the Electoral law have any discriminatoryprovision apinst women to stand for elections.(c)Public ServiceIn Lesotho, women form the majority of public servants. Of the twenty one PrincipalSecretaries only four are women. There are nine female Deputy Principal Secretaries ascompared to ten male Deputy Principal Secretaries. There are two female Ambassadorsout of eleven male Ambassadors. There are nine judges, and of these, only one is afemale judge.(d)CabinetThere is only one female Minister out of fourteen Cabinet Ministers.2 2
Page 2 and 3: ERRATAThe following spelling errors
Page 4 and 5: Title PageTABLE OF CONTENTSTable of
Page 6: Article 8(Freedom of conscience, re
Page 9 and 10: The Government, i.e the Monarchy, E
Page 11 and 12: Lesotho's newly found democracy did
Page 13 and 14: With all these powerful enemies ( o
Page 15 and 16: Total of estimated population censu
Page 17 and 18: 1.9 BASIC DOCUMENTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Page 19 and 20: Now that three years have passed ev
Page 21 and 22: In particular it was pointed out in
Page 23 and 24: participate hi the elections;• el
Page 25 and 26: The Government and Independent Poli
Page 27 and 28: The Department of Social Welfare is
Page 29: Several children are found abandone
Page 33 and 34: 1.15 STEPS TAKEN TO PROTECT FAMILY
Page 35 and 36: The Motheris Union is an Anglican S
Page 37 and 38: The Council of State is made up of
Page 39 and 40: _--..■■••••Arramr•r",
Page 41 and 42: In accordance with section 4 of the
Page 43 and 44: circumstances of the case-(a)(b)(c)
Page 45 and 46: also increased among children from
Page 47 and 48: of a holistic approach to child hea
Page 49 and 50: of Lesotho Liberation Army, victims
Page 51 and 52: imprisonment;(2) Any Chief or Publi
Page 53 and 54: (1)(2)if a parent or guardian of a
Page 55 and 56: (3) Any person who is arrested or d
Page 57 and 58: ( statistics on such cases have not
Page 59 and 60: and free from interference and subj
Page 61 and 62: admissible in evidence against such
Page 63 and 64: interference, freedom to receive id
Page 65 and 66: Section 7 further empowers the Regi
Page 67 and 68: ARTICLE 12The constitution provides
Page 69 and 70: (i)to perform such other functions
Page 71 and 72: (vi) in consequence of any law with
Page 73 and 74: According to Section 30 of the Cons
Page 75 and 76: 1997 - 2001 UNICEF/GOL programme of
Page 77 and 78: In addition to governmental efforts
Page 79 and 80: This issue is of concern to many NG
Page 81 and 82:
oadening of the democratic process
Page 83 and 84:
Lesotho is a member of the United N
Page 85 and 86:
in section 33, which provides:With
Page 87 and 88:
Consequently, the government of Les
Page 89 and 90:
adopted an action plan of all the r
Page 91 and 92:
The Courts shall, in the performanc
Page 93:
I esoiho Cabinet Decisions:Cabinet
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English - African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights

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