At regional level, SADC has declared in the Gender and Development Declaration to:

• Promote women's full access to, and control over productive resources such as land, livestock, markets, credit, modern technology, formal employment, and a good quality of life in order to reduce the level of poverty among women;
• Repeal and reform all laws, amend constitutions and change social practices which still subject women to discrimination, and enact empowering gender sensitive laws; and
• Encourage the mass media to disseminate information and materials in respect of the human rights of women and children.

In Lesotho, the National Law Reform Commission has been set up to work on the laws and narrow the existing gender gaps in all legal issues in the country.

The position taken by Lesotho in this regard is that the law is central to gender issues since it cuts across all sectors.

In Mozambique, a Legal Reform Commission divided into various sub-commissions has been established.

The Non-Governmental Organisations' Co-ordinating Committee (NGOCC) in Zambia has summarised and simplified the PFA and translated it into Zambia's seven major local languages.

In Zimbabwe, a new law on inheritance was passed in 1997. The new law protects a deceased breadwinner's property from being seized by the heir or other relations in the event of his or her death.

Under the new inheritance law, the heir no longer enjoys the privilege of distributing property as he chooses; it has to be in consultation with other beneficiaries. Now the heir can inherit as an individual in the case of the death of a breadwinner, the tsvimbo, a ritual knobkerrie, and can only go as far as assuming the traditional role of head of family.

Five countries in the SADC region have identified promotion of human rights as a critical area of concern at national level. These are Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania.

Most countries in the region have or are in the process of amending their statutes to ensure equality and non-discrimination under the law.

In Botswana, the Citizenship Act was amended in 1995 in response to a court decision to the effect that certain of its provisions were unconstitutional because they discriminated against women.

In 1996 a bill repealing a provision which denied women married in community of property the right to have immovable property registered in their names passed through Parliament to become law.

Other laws that have been amended in that country in response to calls to remove their gender biases include:

• the Employment Act of 1992 which now gives all female public officers full pay while on maternity leave; and
• the Mines and Quarries Amendment Act of 1995 which now allows females to work underground in mines if they chose.

In Namibia the passage of the Married Persons Equality Bill in 1996 marked a milestone in the struggle of Namibian women to obtain equality with their husbands before the law.

The Act abolishes the marital power which made the husband the head of the household. It also provides for women married in community of property to have equal access to bank loans and ownership of property.

The Zambian Constitution was amended in 1996 to include sex as one of the grounds on which discrimination is outlawed but it exempts discrimination in customary, family and personal laws.

In the Namibian and South African constitutions the problem of compatibility of gender equality provisions with other constitutional provisions which recognise the validity of customary law and the power of traditional authorities prevails. Yet it is in this area that most discriminatory laws against women are found.

Zambia and Zimbabwe, in attempts to address the discrimination, instead of giving women the same rights as men to pass citizenship to foreign spouses, have taken away men's rights to automatically pass citizenship to their foreign wives.

In Tanzania there are ongoing efforts to incorporate legal and human rights in the formal educational curricula.

The Law Reform Commission has been working on the revision of some of the relevant laws and traditions which discriminate against women, with a view to proposing amendments.

Various development partners in Tanzania have supported schemes that provided legal aid to women, although most of them were urban-based and the majority of rural women, who are often worse victims of various forms of injustice and discrimination have not benefited much from the service.

In his speech at the presentation of the Beijing Declaration in Dar es Salaam in March 1996, the Tanzanian President, Benjamin Mkapa, called upon lawyers and law-enforcement agents to take a more active role in supporting women's legal empowerment. He challenged the mass media in particular to enhance women's legal knowledge.

Legal literacy campaigns have also been carried out, including the establishment of legal clinics, which counsel women on legal issues and on how to defend their rights, sensitisation of the general public on legal issues through radio programmes and publications.

Some countries have enacted statutes, which seek to address these gender biases. A real and critical challenge remains in that even where laws providing for gender equality have been put in place, mechanisms for enforcement of these laws are either weak or non-existent.

In attempts to redress this situation, women's NGOs have taken a more active role than governments in providing programmes for legal literacy and support for women to benefit from the constitutional and statutory provisions.

These efforts have seen the simplification, repackaging, translation and dissemination of the CEDAW, Beijing PFA and national laws for the benefit of the ordinary woman as well as sensitising policy and lawmakers.

A need has been expressed by women in the region that SADC should establish the human rights tribunal provided for under article 16 of the SADC Treaty and that this should deal with violations of women's rights.

They have also challenged SADC to adopt legally binding instruments and protocols and encourage member states to incorporate them into their constitutions and legislation.

• Introduction to the SADC Gender Monitor
• Global, Regional and National Commitments
• SADC Countries' National Priority Areas of Concern