Cultural idiosyncrasies and religion: Why it is difficult to implement the third Millennium Development Goal

Abstract

abstract The BBC highlighted in 2011 that Libyan women and girls raped by pro-Gaddafi forces faced another cultural challenge of honour killing. Harter (BBC, 14 June, 2011) claims that raped women have shamed their families by dishonouring their male relatives and this dishonour can only be cleansed by murdering the victims. Such events highlight the complex nature of religious and cultural beliefs within conservative societies. What is interpreted as religion and lays claim to Islamic teachings, is often the result of the integration of cultural peculiarities within religion. The question posed in this Open Forum is whether the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for women's achievement of MDG 3 - promote gender equality and empower women - are obstructed by non-secular cultural expression and practices in many Africa countries, even if the MDGs have political support. The objectives of this Open Forum are firstly, to assert that, as in the case of the Musawah Project, that reviewed documents for 44 countries from 2005–2010, has examined the reluctance of governments to implement the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the approach to the MDGs needs to be mediated with sensitivity in the context of non-secular community cultural interpretations of gender equality and women's empowerment. Secondly, it is asserted that when culture is fused with religion, the practice of confining women to primary spaces in the private sphere is legitimated with problematic consequences for women's involvement in education, politics and the economy. It is argued that the implementation of the MDG relating to gender equality in many African countries needs to be viewed in conjunction with CEDAW to understand the influence of culture and religion upon women's lives and the specific contexts in which women's equality and gender empowerment hold social relevance and meaning.