Three questions to Amélie Akinshola, from the NGO Rescue and Hope

Amélie Akinshola is the co-founder and current Executive Director of the NGO Rescue and Hope in Benin. This association was created in 2006 to promote the well-being, empowerment and justice of youth, girls and women, particularly in rural and peri-urban areas. As an activist in Beninese civil society, she has more than fourteen years of professional experience in outreach activities for the promotion of girls’ and women’s rights and empowerment.

Few weeks before the Generation Equality Forum in Paris and on the occasion of the launching of the website genderexperts.org, Amélie Akinshola told us about the work carried out by the NGO she leads and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the lives of women in Benin.

Expertes Genre : Can you tell us about the main actions of your NGO Rescue and Hope, in favor of the empowerment of rural women in Benin?

Amélie Akinshola : Rescue and Hope is a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) under Beninese law working for the continuous improvement of the health and living and working conditions of vulnerable populations. We also work to defend and promote the rights of girls, women, youth and adolescents and promote good local governance and the active participation of women and girls. Our areas of intervention are health, education, empowerment, inclusion, social justice and the fight against gender-based violence.

Rescue and Hope achieves its objectives through seven main actions: advocacy, awareness raising and educational outreach (which promotes attitudinal and behavioral change), training and capacity building (in digital skills, entrepreneurship, etc.), provision of sexual and reproductive health services including prevention of sexually transmitted infections and diseases. We also offer listening, guidance and psycho-social and legal support services as well as material and financial support to improve women’s working conditions and artisanal and agricultural production.

This health crisis has particularly affected women, resulting in loss of employment and income »

Amélie Akinshola, co-founder of the NGO Rescue and Hope

• What are the main challenges facing Beninese women today, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic?

Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased gender gaps in economic, social, political, health, employment and legal terms.

This health crisis has particularly affected women, resulting in loss of employment and income, increased precariousness and poverty among women, and loss of financial independence from men. Work restrictions and job losses related to Covid-19 have increased women’s workload in care services, as well as the time spent on domestic work.

All these social and financial pressures related to the pandemic also subject women to stress, illness and violence of various kinds: psychological, social and physical. Moreover, as a result of this violence, the number of unwanted pregnancies among adolescents, young girls and women, has also increased.

Finally, the pandemic is also increasing the digital divide of which women are more victims, due to the development of the use of digital technology, computer tools, the Internet, video-conferencing, online training, etc.

ideo-conferencing, online training, etc. However, these different domains to which the pandemic has dealt great blows are intimately linked to the realization of fundamental human rights. It is therefore very important to consider these challenges in the adoption of a national strategic action plan for post-COVID-19 development.

• The Generation Equality Forum, a global gathering for gender equality organized by UN Women and co-chaired by Mexico and France, is being held this year, almost 25 years after the Beijing conference. Do you consider that there is a real appropriation of this event by feminists of the African continent? How can such appropriation be encouraged?

Some networks of feminists on the African continent have appropriated this great event and have been contributing for decades to the dissemination in Africa of the achievements of the Beijing Declaration.

We encourage women and civil society in Benin to register in order to participate in the Generation Equality Forum and to follow the work of the action coalitions on the six main themes of the Forum (gender-based violence; economic justice; feminist movements and leadership; sexual and reproductive rights and health; new technologies and innovation for gender equality; women’s action for climate justice). For our part, we are responding to the call to become a pledge-holder (Editor’s note: open until June), which will allow us to push for concrete pledges and to support the implementation and monitoring of these pledges.

Within Rescue and Hope, for example, we have chosen to focus on four themes: gender-based violence, economic justice and rights, bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health rights, and feminist movements and leadership.