In my experience, the minority people in Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, Abyei and Darfur are
being oppressed by their own government and it has become obvious that the government does
not respond to civil society organization or international treaties, even if they are signatories. In
many countries like Sudan the constitution has no provision for women’s right, instead, it reflect
institutional gender discriminationii. Therefore, these efforts must not cease. It is time, now more
than ever before, to put an end to the humiliations against minorities in critical situations such as
in the 10 countries ranked by the MRGiii as highest having most people under threat.
The policies and legislation have been controlled by the fanatic leaders who do not have the
political will to empower minorities, leave alone minority women, they also control the media
and mislead the public including the international community. Therefore, transformation of
legislations and policies in those countries and changing the leaders from dictatorship to
democracy and to restructure the center of power is crucial. Otherwise the situation will remains
the same despite all efforts being made by concerned bodies and institutions. In these cases, civil
society organizations and NGOs need to be assisted to carry out their noble mission of
transformation.
Democracy in countries where there is a lot of minority groups often the minority groups are
over looked if there is a large ethnically affiliated group, especially in Africa. There for there
must be a system set up in these democracies that ensure a voice for these minorities and that
promotes diversity of vote and not just voting for the person that is from the same tribe or
ethnicity. Than minority opinion will be more important in Democracies.
We also need to consider different contexts and local realities, while learning from countries
with good practices. National/International human rights institutions, the private sector and other
stockholders have the obligation to study obstacles and recommend legislative and policy
reforms in line with the local context and assist in developing programs to guarantee the
implementation of non-discriminative legislation with regard to such areas as minority women’s
access to education and training, employment, social security, financial services and property
ownership.
Development agencies must have physical presence in the areas of minorities and should work in
collaboration with Governments “having the political well” and civil society to identify barriers
to development and remedy the root causes of multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination
faced by minority women. This should result in their economic and social inclusion to ensure
the full and effective participation in all programs or projects cycle that will affect minorities or
the regions in which they live. They also need to interact with minority women and understand
their challenges in order to come up with practical solutions that are sustainable and result
oriented.
In search for freedom and human dignity, we need to create an atmosphere that enables
minorities deeply engaged in a political dialogue that will result in an umbrella for change and
for democracy and equality. This should be supported by the international community such as
the United Nations system, human rights mechanisms, Human Rights Council, MRG etc. with
new approaches and values shared between national civil society organization and those