nextIt is often said, and will always provoke a nod of agreement: UNICEF works
with communities, with villages, with families and households. It is one of our
strengths, something that separates us from other UN agencies.
Did you nod? When did you last have a real conversation with a child or woman
in a programme country?
I suppose what we really mean to say is: We pay attention to the effect of
policies and programmes on the family and the child. We help to analyze what is
going in communities. We seek to obtain the views of families and households on
proposed policies and programmes. We help governments to design programmes where
citizens can influence decisions on the use of resources. We advocate for
measures that increase children’s and women’s control over their lives.
We might not always have gotten it completely right. As illustrated, for
instance, by the recent front-page article[1] in the New York Times, about the
fate of a widow, herself dying of AIDS, and her children in rural Malawi. Kicked
out of her own house, robbed of her last possessions by her in-laws, too weak to
protest the injustice inflicted by custom. Her children pauperized, at risk of
neglect and abuse. You don’t need to be a gender expert to analyze this.
Carol, in her official statement of 28 February, said: “If women are not strong,
then families are not strong. If families are not strong, children are in
jeopardy”.
Something to remember. Because we may have been lulling ourselves for too long
in the assumption that we work well with families. If we want to believe that we
work effectively at the community level, we better get serious about confronting
gender discrimination.
[1] NY Times, February 18: AIDS and Custom Leave African Families Nothing
(4 March 2005)
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