By: Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
A Ugandan feminist and lawyer with a background in women’s economic justice, Hazel Birungi has admonished African journalists to treat issues of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) as human and women’s rights.
Madam Birungi, who is also a founding member of the Youth for Tax Justice Network, hinted that IFFs have devastating impacts on individuals, communities, and societies, particularly on vulnerable populations such as women and children.
Africa is losing millions of dollars due to these illegal activities, which are depriving the continent of the much-needed resources for its rapid growth.
According to her, the deprivation of resources needed for development of countries through IFFs is hindering the realization of economic, social, and cultural rights of women and children.
Talking to some selected journalists during a session on Gendered Dimensions of IFFs at a 5-day intensive media training on IFFs organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), with funding from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, at Ada in the Greater Accra region, Madam Birungi explained that activities of IFFs undermine women’s economic empowerment by reducing access to financial resources, education, political participation and job opportunities.
Even though Ghana is said to be leading the advancement of gender equality in the West and Central Africa region, statistics available is not all that encouraging especially in the area of political participation. Only 15% of women are in parliament and management positions in the private sector include only 27% women.
Available data show that 77% of women are in vulnerable jobs compared to 58% of men. Again, about eight percent (8%) of women own land compared to 30% of men.
The most common forms of domestic violence reported by women were economic violence (13%), social violence (12%), psychological violence (9%), physical violence (6%), and sexual violence (3%). These issues, according to Madam Birungi are linked to IFFs.
“Issues of IFFs need urgent attention from the media since they exacerbate gender-based violence by perpetuating inequality and reducing resources available for social protection programs.
It also reduced healthcare funding, thus compromising women’s access to healthcare, particularly reproductive healthcare,” she reiterated.
To address IFFs as Human and Women’s Rights Issues, Madam Birungi called for strengthened and enhanced international cooperation to combat IFFs, including through the United Nations and regional organizations.
“What we need to do as journalists is to advocate for the promotion of transparency and accountability in financial transactions and government spending. Empower women and vulnerable populations through education, economic empowerment, and social protection programs. By treating IFFs as human and women’s rights issues, we can better address the root causes of these flows and promote a more equitable and just society,” she added.
The week-long training, was aimed at equipping journalists with the skill-sets and innovative tools to uncover financial crimes such as money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption among others which contribute to Africa’s under development.
Ghana is not the only African country benefiting from such impactful training; Kenya and Tanzania are also beneficiaries of the programme as issues of IFFs is a global canker. Similar workshops were concurrently conducted in Kenya and Tanzania to build capacity of journalists.
The Ada training workshop marks the second phase of the training in Ghana. It forms part of MFWA’s broader efforts to combat corruption through media empowerment. So far, a total number of trained journalists across the three countries stands at 30.
The selected journalists were exposed to key subject areas including: financial transparency, Public Finance Management (PFM), tax avoidance, and investigative journalism techniques and legal frameworks related to IFFs reporting.
