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Fighting for the rights of women and childrenTo say that Graça Machel radiates a down-to-earth charisma is perhaps a contradiction in terms, but nonetheless somehow accurate when trying to describe the sheer force of her beguiling persona. Small wonder that Nelson Mandela, her universally revered husband of 11 years, is reported to have said: “She changed my life.”
Machel has the unique distinction of having been married to the serving presidents of two countries during her lifetime of 63 years. But it was to find out more about her well known passionate views on women and children’s rights that we met on a prematurely Spring-like day at the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s Houghton premises.
She was awarded the 1995 Nansen Medal in recognition of her outstanding contributions on behalf of refugee children. We discussed her groundbreaking report on the impact of armed conflict on children: Former United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali commissioned her in 1993 as independent expert to undertake this wide-ranging two-year project. There is an unmistakable hint of pride in her voice when she states: “This was no desk research.”
Between 1994 and 1996, she and her team held consultations in all five regions of the United Nations – Asia, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and the African continent, the latter divided into two for the purposes of the study.
These consultations must have been of a no-nonsense, frank nature, to say the least, because she admits with an ironic laugh: “When I feel strongly about things, I can be very rude and I had to confront people in a very ‘frontal’ way.”
She claims the impact of this study was due to its methodology. It involved UN bodies, country UN members, non-governmental organisations and research institutions. They gathered a bulk of information that was derived from a diversity of research institutions and practitioners, as well as valuable information that was collected by way of regional consultations.
They took into account every region’s specific circumstances, which had evolved from its history and culture.
“What made this study so different is because of the involvement of eminent persons. They gave us the moral authority to look at issues of human rights regarding children, particularly children in conflict – not only as a legal issue but on a humanitarian level.
“They helped us to define clearly how we should touch the consciousness of humanity in terms of what it means when you instrumentalise children.”
Machel is proud yet self-effacing about her role but, clearly, the report would not have been as far reaching, its impact not as powerful without her fiery leadership.
History was made when she presented the finalised report on children in conflict to the General Assembly as a human rights issue in 1996. It was the first time that an issue of human rights, not of a particular country, served before this august body.
Because so many important studies are undertaken at great cost and often end up on a shelf to gather dust, I asked whether the recommendations of her report had been properly implemented in the years since its completion.
Machel’s widely reported direct nature came strongly to the fore as she outlined the far-reaching effects of the work that had been done. “It has changed institutionally the way the UN looks at children in conflict,” she said, attractive gestures accompanying her charmingly accented English.
A suitable follow-up framework was also put in place in order to track and measure implementation of its recommendations in the years that followed.
“Unfortunately, at country level the outcomes varied. We found situations where certain governments did well in terms of revising legislation to outlaw the recruitment of children below 18, but as far as rebel groups are concerned, you only have to note what you see on newscasts.
“In Northern Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, Sri Lanka, wherever there is conflict, children are still enrolled with rebel groups and according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child – signed and ratified by most countries, except the United States – a child is a child until the age of 18. Only a citizen can be enrolled.”
In accordance with the report’s recommendations, a special representative for children in conflict, appointed by the Secretary-General, would have a direct responsibility to look after the situation of children in conflict, which includes the demobilisation of child soldiers according to agreed principles, as well as their social reintegration.
Most importantly, the recruitment of children as child soldiers, as well as rape, would be punishable as a war crime.
“You know, the first time I saw this Congolese rebel leader sitting in the International Criminal Court at The Hague being tried, precisely because of recruitment of child soldiers, I had tears in my eyes. I said to myself, it took so long, but at least there is one single person who has been brought to book. And it is as a result of our study. Actually, looking back, we did a good job,” Machel declared, with obvious emotion.
Another important recommendation that was made and adopted was the condemnation of the sale of arms to countries involved in conflict.
“Those who are guilty of this deplorable practice are in effect fuelling conflict from outside and they become part of the problem. The UN should be able to introduce sanctions against such countries. You see it happening again and again. The perpetrators choose to ignore the tragic end results because of the huge profits which are part of such deals.”
“To tell you the truth”, she continued, “that process, those two years, changed me as a human being. I learnt to appreciate even better what human suffering means, particularly when you are talking of children. I became intolerant about that and I think it is a good thing to be intolerant and impatient about that. I found my resolve in terms of my approach to the protection of children deepened and intensified.
“But it also softened me from inside”, she confessed, a womanly softness evident in her demeanour.
Again that little laugh at remembered self-discovery: “During those two years when I was working on the study, I would tell my children stories about the heart-rending things I was witnessing. One of my children, who was 17 at the time, said: ‘Mum, I think you went out there to support children who are traumatised, but I’m afraid you are the one who is traumatised now!’
“And he was right”, she said, almost shyly, as her voice dropped a few decibels, “because it is also true that there are images which are still with me until today. They will never go. Of that I am sure.
“My intention in talking to my children was to help them to realise how privileged they were. I didn’t take into account at first that I was talking to my children who themselves were orphans. I mean, they had lost their father in traumatising circumstances”, she said, remnants of outrage in her voice, more than 30 years after the untimely death of President Samora Machel.
“Nevertheless, I still had to explain to them how privileged they are.
“They would look at me and say, ‘we witnessed this and we don’t have answers until today as to how Father was killed. How can you say we are privileged?’”
Her speech became almost yielding: “I said, ‘yes, you are… You have a family, you have a caring mother.’ And although there are some scars, they are normal children now.”
“So, when I say it softened me from inside, if there is anything until today which I really don’t tolerate, it is to see a suffering child. I can’t take it.”
Before this study, education was not part of humanitarian assistance. The norm was that education formed part of development programmes but, as a result of what Machel and her team observed in refugee camps, they strongly felt that children in these circumstances needed to be provided with a certain degree of normalcy.
“Kids of a certain age wake up, they go to school and then they come home to their families. We said there is no reason why this shouldn’t be done in a refugee camp. But people were saying, no, refugees are expected to get food, medical assistance, clean water – education isn’t part of it. We insisted it had to be. So we made a recommendation which changed the ‘package’ of humanitarian assistance to include education.”
Machel and her team also visited the Lebanon camps. “It is heartbreaking because those Palestinian kids have no prospect of when they can go back. Children in such circumstances really grow up very, very quickly. They are confronted with realities which shorten the period in which they are children. Many of them were born in those camps.
“Education provided for them only went as far as primary level. We lobbied fiercely for secondary school and some degree of professional training”, she said, smiling meaningfully at the memory of the emotional investment these efforts required.
Some parents who could afford it sent their children to Lebanese schools, but Machel and her team fought for those children who did not have the resources.
“Those camps are still there until today”, she said with what could be described as frustrated resignation.
She related how a Palestinian boy of about 13 or 14 came to her and said: “Mrs Machel, you are doing this and you are making all these recommendations, but when do you think all this is going to come to an end?”
This question has been haunting her ever since. “Every time they talk about the Palestinian situation, I remember that child”, she declared with fierce emotion, emphasising her words with little stabs of her pen on the notepad before her.
Machel is a member of the eminent Group of Elders, consisting among others of world leaders such as Bill Clinton, Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan. This summer she and a group of designated members of the Elders will be visiting the Middle East.
The Group of Elders meet twice a year in normal circumstances, but work in smaller groups in between according to their programme. Their mission is to send the messages that they believe are important for leaders to be aware of, particularly those to whom other people cannot talk.
“In situations of conflict you have to talk to everybody, even those who are believed to be on the wrong side. The Elders will not choose. Whoever is involved, is part of the problem.
“Conflict is where people deeply disagree. We try to use our weight and moral authority to solve problems and build peace. We are very busy with peace-building, even where there is not open conflict.”
Although not an issue of declared war, issues of disaffected women are considered by the Elders in order to try and alleviate suffering, where possible. She quoted the preamble of Unesco’s constitution: “Since wars begin in the minds of people, it is in the minds of men that the defence of peace must be constructed”.
Machel becomes visibly uncomfortable when one speaks of her undeniable influence: “I have been given extraordinary opportunities in life.
There are people behind me who supported me, who encouraged me, who opened doors for me to be where I am.
“Because of that I also have the responsibility to open doors for others and to speak out. I can stand on certain platforms, in audiences and am able to touch institutions, to talk to leaders at different levels. There are many people I can just pick up the phone and say, listen there’s this problem, can you think about this? Not everyone in the world can do this. But I use it.
“Although we now have many women who are active in politics, in business and in other spheres, there are still countless women who do not have a voice; those who are poor, who have no education, who do not have rights. Especially children can’t speak for themselves in forums where decisions are being made that affect their lives. You have to speak on their behalf.”
What was the genesis of this strong motivation? “My motivation began when I would go to my Ministry in the morning and I would find this pile of telegrams from different parts of Mozambique during the 1980s. They contained reports of children who were attacked, their schools burnt down and teachers abducted.
“These were my children, my schools, my teachers. Because of the language similarity, we asked Unicef of Brazil to help us to develop the training of teachers who could identify traumatised children, who could deal with their families, their communities. Because of the excellent reintegration work done, it has not been possible to identify a generation of children, erstwhile child soldiers, who grew up to become criminals,” she said.
Although Machel did not realise it at the time of growing up, her own background played an enormous part in preparing her for her future role as an activist. “My father died three weeks before I was born. A child takes things for granted, but with hindsight I ask myself why it is that I had a balanced childhood – a happy childhood”.
She declares with feeling: “My mother, my family, my siblings. A loving and caring family is something that can never be replaced. The lessons you learn later in life cause you to acknowledge the inestimable value of the laying of that strong foundation.
“You look at all this in retrospect and say, aaah, it was then that I was confronted with the responsibility of doing something about the wrongs against women and children. Then you understand the importance of the mothers in these life threatening situations,” she explains.
“My motivation became even stronger from visiting refugee camps, feeding centres,” she continues and utters a breathy but resonant whooo sound at the recollection of children’s wards in situations of conflict. “You can’t describe it. You can’t. Those children are so traumatised, they hardly cry.”
A momentary silence settled in the sunny boardroom where we were talking…
Almost to ward off her terrible memories, I reminded her of her affecting statement that it takes a village to raise a child. Machel reverted to her ebullient self: “That has been one of the African culture’s strengths – precisely the collective responsibility towards the young. Not only towards children, but also towards women.
“In traditional African culture, do whatever you want to do, but you protect the child, you protect the woman. If that thread is broken, then you are in crisis.”
When I ask what keeps her going during hard times, she repeats the question introspectively with a sigh and then responds with touching candour: “When my first husband was assassinated, it was my children that kept me going.
“I felt I couldn’t fail them. They were caught up in this situation which they in no way created or wanted. They had nothing to do with it.
“I had something to do with it because the two of us were sort of partners in political life also.
“My two kids – my own two daughters – were very small. One was 10, the other seven. I was stepmother to a boy of 17 at the time and others who were 18 and 20, but they were relatively grown up. My family and my obligations towards my children had to keep me going at that point in time.”
Her voice trails off with: “You can’t think...” and then she ends off her train of thought with a slightly brusque: “But that is history.
“What keeps me going now? I sometimes see situations of people who are in extreme situations who keep their dignity, they keep their resilience and they just keep going. Then I ask myself, what right have I to give up because, let’s face it, in many respects I’m a very lucky person. So I just don’t have any right, even when I face a situation of challenge, to give up,”
she says.
“Because there are many more people – women in particular – who are in much worse situations than mine. I say it in a modest way because I believe women are still very much discriminated against. They are not given recognition for their dignity as human beings. They are not respected and cherished in their dignity.”
We discuss the importance of women interacting in society. In their report on the effect of armed conflict on children, the subject of women in conflict and the role they can play in conflict resolution were raised.
With expressive, animated gestures, Machel tells of a study that was recently commissioned by the UN Secretary-General on women in conflict as a result of her and her team’s study. The two eminent women that the Secretary-General has identified – Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia; and Elisabeth Rehn, former Finnish Minister of Defence – recently met with Machel in a New York hotel to discuss how she organised her study.
“That is why I keep coming back to this: That all of us as human beings, if we are to be more human, we are to recognise and respect women’s dignity. This keeps me going with women’s rights.”
But Machel says the best lessons she has learnt was through witnessing the suffering of children in situations of conflict. “Children’s pain”, she declares, powerfully whispering each syllable.
“So for me, these two groups have touched my life and I just can’t stop.”
She expressed the opinion that in order to address the status of women, the mindset of many men needed to be changed. At this point, the words of Professor Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and guest speaker at the Third Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in July, became particularly relevant.
He related during his lecture how the husbands of women who had been assisted and had done well for their families through his Grameen Foundation microcredit scheme became angry because their women were being taken from their homes where their husbands felt
they belonged.
Prof. Yunus was impatient with them, his response being that if you hide behind a culture, it becomes a dead culture and that we should create a counter culture.
Machel was in full agreement: “The difference is that women and men are valued in a different way. The same goes for black and white people.”
Her final thoughts or a heartfelt wish for South Africa?
Her gaze intense, Graça Machel states: “We need to confront really seriously the issue of gender violence and violence against children.
That’s where the depth of crisis lies.
“What has happened to us to get to this point where people don’t respect kids and they don’t respect women? When they go as far as to rape and then sometimes in a sadistic way they kill women and children?
“The two biggest challenges of humankind today are gender and race. All over the world there is this disparity, not only in this country.
Human beings have to accept that they are equal; men and women, and the same applies to members of all racial groups,” she says.
“We have grown in a ‘construct’ based on false premises which were inculcated in us and cannot withstand scientific analysis.
“These beliefs have to be challenged. Culture is dynamic and nothing remains static. We have to deconstruct and develop a counter culture which will enable us to fully accept that men and women, black and white are equal.” ▲
