The GREAT Inititiative - Gender Right & Equality Trust

Mariella Frostrup: A really GREAT cause

February 1, 2011  In the Press

Ahead of our launch event on 19th May, Mariella presents The GREAT Initiative and explains why she become involved in our cause. The following article is being published in the Finch Quarterly Review in February 2011.

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The Gender Rights and Equality Action Trust has been set up by a group of people, including Mariella Frostrup, who explains why GREAT is needed and the reasons for her enthusiastic support.

I was asked to participate in a debate at the Royal Geographical Society a few years ago. ‘We’re All Feminists Now’ asserted the motion and, faced with the literary might of Howard Jacobson and Tim Lott, I was initially struck dumb, fearing it was going to be a tough challenge to argue the opposite.

A quick Google put me straight: two-thirds of the children denied school are girls, 64 per cent of the world’s illiterate adults are women, 41m girls are still denied a primary education, 75 per cente of the civilians killed in war are women and children, causing Major General Patrick Cammaert, the former UN Peacekeeping Commander in the Democratic of Congo, to declare, ‘It is now more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier in modern conflict’.

So much for having it all, it was beginning to look suspiciously like most of my sex had nothing at all, not even the right to defend themselves against domestic violence or educate their daughters. I summoned my resolve and continued. Gender-based violence causes more deaths and disabilities among women aged 15-44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war. Basically it’s safer to spend Friday nights chain-smoking on the M1 with a bag of smuggled-in Haitian mosquitoes, in fog, than to be a woman in large swathes of the world.

It’s not possible to have a daughter (as I do) and ignore the fact that every year, 60m girls are sexually assaulted at or en route to school. One in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. One in four women will be victims of domestic violence in their lifetime – many of these on a number of occasions. Women who experience violence are up to three times more likely to acquire HIV. Indeed, it is now women and children, not men, among whom Aids is most prevalent. Amongst national governments, 29 per cent lack laws or policies to prevent violence against women. Women hold only 19 per cent of the world’s parliamentary seats. Have you had enough yet?

Luckily, in the UK things are much better. We have only a glass ceiling between us and the realization of our dreams - or is it, as Janet Street-Porters maintains, made of concrete? After 60 years of emancipation there are more men called David in our current coalition than there are total women MP’s. Whoop, whoop for equality eh?

Rage is a powerful motivating force, I discovered, as I delved further into the reality of the lives of millions of women the world over who lacked basic human rights, let alone any possibility of equality. I visited IDP (internally displaced persons) camps in Chad where women were being raped daily when they ventured out to gather firewood so they could cook for their children, sat in Mozambique as the 12 women farmers gathered around me raised their hands in unison to indicate that every one of them was a victim of domestic violence, a crime they were campaigning to have outlawed. And yes, this was only last year.

Among developed nations, the spirit we exhibited in the Sixties and Seventies appears to have been exhausted. These days we sit back apathetically while we get our hair done and leaf through Hello’, or shop for ever more crippling high heels and designer handbags - forgetting entirely about the women all over the world to whom our lives are utterly unimaginable. I was guilty, as many of us are, of charity fatigue. I just couldn’t be bothered to wear one more T-shirt, donate one more item of clothing, go to one more carol concert, buy one more charity record - until the extent of the greatest crime of the 21^st century, a crime being perpetrated against millions of my fellow women denied even basis human rights, became too much to bear.

That’s why a group of us set up GREAT, the Gender Rights and Equality Action Trust. That’s why individuals including Annie Lenox and the first female president in Africa, Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson of Liberia became active patrons. But it’s not just sisters that are doing it: Bono and Damon Albarn joined our ranks; this is not a women’s issue any longer…this is a human issue. Countries where girls are educated and women play their part in government are countries where the economy begins to flourish. Women are more interested in ending wars than starting them. There are endless statistics that prove both these points to be the reality. The emancipation of women is the only possible future for the developing world as it was and continues to be for us.

Our foundation seeks to foster gender equality for our sisters and shake the world into action. As the suffragettes and the Dagenham ford Factory girls knew only too well, we need to embarrass mankind into gender equality. Many women in Africa, fully engaged in their struggle for basic human rights (let alone equal rights), believe that we can help them achieve equality by giving their leaders the incentive to fill the gender gaps.

There are just 10 years in which to live up to the African Union’s Decade for African Woman. We intend to develop the existing Femmes Africa Solidarité annual African Gender Award, which recognises the leader who has done most to achieve gender equality in the previous year, into the most coveted gong on that continent. Such recognition will help to drive change by making the inclusion of women a priority instead of convenient rhetoric. As GREAT develops its coalition around the world, so its awards will move to other continents. But we are not stopping there. We also wish to support our African sisters in building the first grass roots African women’s centre that will train and educate women from the whole continent in business, peace process and conflict resolution (to train women for local and national government) where they can then be empowered to push against inequalities.

GREAT unashamedly asks for your help. We need funds and inspired, powerful supporters to help our sisters effect change. Please see our website (www.thegreatinitiative.com) for information on our fundraising events and awareness projects. Our annual glitzy, star studded Gala (auction and music event) is set for 19^th May, at the new Seven Star Corinthia Hotel in Whitehall. We hope you’ll join us and our patrons for a fun-filled night that offers something a little different. The tangible possibility of changing this world for the better is within our reach. Only by working together can we ensure that gender equality is achieved globally.

Mariella Frostrup is a journalist and television presenter and co-founder of the GREAT Initiative (www.thegreatinitiative.com)

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