Bukavu, DR Congo--In DR Congo, where women struggle against terrible violence and inequality, a committed activist fights against all the odds to give women a third of all elected posts.
Known as "Maman Parite" -- "Mama Parity" in English -- Esperance Mawanzo hasn't stopped to catch her breath since a hotly disputed January electoral law cancelled out President Joseph Kabila's pledge to bring more women into politics.
Maman Parite lives and works in Bukavu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where women still suffer in the wake of a savage conflict that infamously saw all sides using rape as a war weapon.
Armed with hope, the activist's Parity Observatory rights group encourages and prepares women to run for office.
"Become a candidate for the local (urban) or provincial elections!" reads the South Kivu province electoral clinic's freshly printed flyers, some six months ahead of a local poll.
The east of the vast central African country was wracked by conflict even before two terrible wars (1996-2003) gripped the area. Scores of thousands of women have been brutally raped by armed groups or soldiers.
In October 2013, Kabila pledged better political representation for women. But the electoral law that parliament approved after protests early this year killed up to 42 people dropped all references to a women's quota.
Practically all opposition MPs were absent from the voting session that approved the law, seen widely as a manouevre to keep Kabila in power beyond his mandate.
To Maman Parite, the new electoral law is "sexist".
AFP
