My Opinion | Nov 18,2023
Feb 12 , 2022
The European Union and Africa are at the cusp of signing a new 20-year binding treaty as discussions advance between heads of states and negotiators. It is no small document especially because it contains the hidden, harmful and imperialistic sexual rights agenda embedded in the Post-Cotonou (African, Caribbean, Pacific) ACP-EU Agreement.
This binding 20-year treaty, awaiting the signatures of head states, would not only continue the sexual, social, cultural and ideological colonisation of Africa by the European Union but threatens Africa’s identity and undermines the continent’s values, traditions, norms and culture. It needs no mentioning that people without such fundamental parameters are defenceless and vulnerable.
There are some substantial and procedural anomalies underpinning this treaty. Since it is largely an economic, development and trade agreement, government experts on those issues negotiated it. During the negotiations, the European Union then insisted that social, sexual, education and human rights issues be added, which our negotiators have no expertise in. It should be noted that while our UN diplomats are well vested with the relevant subject matter, the same were excluded from the negotiation process. It excludes the informed voice of Africa and imposes the European Union way of life upon Africa at the expense of our beliefs, customs, norms and values.
The European Union parliament passed a resolution insisting that “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI) be included in the treaty, which they accomplished by deceptively inserting obligations for African countries to implement abortion and harmful sexual “rights.” These sexual “rights” are, in fact, sexual “wrongs” for children and our nations.
In fact, the European Union parliament, only one month after the Agreement was negotiated, passed a resolution defining “sexual and reproductive health and rights” (SRHR) for the European Union (which the treaty requires Africans to implement) as encompassing “abortion,” “comprehensive sexuality education,” and “sexual orientation and gender identity.”
From the beginning, the European Union has been dictating the terms and scope of the Agreement, which is one-sided. As the saying goes, “he who funds the process, owns the process.”
Moreover, why does the treaty require African and other ACP countries to implement SRHR and comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) that sexualizes children (the latter is embedded very deceptively), even though the African Group at the United Nations has repeatedly rejected such for good reason?
Why, or how can the European Union require the implementation of SRHR and CSE for African children in a 20-year binding treaty when the it does not even have the power, competency or authority to require the same of its own member countries? This is cultural imperialism at its worst.
Why are there three separate African, Caribbean and Pacific protocols but no European Union protocol?
African heads of state need to send an urgent, formal communication to the lead treaty negotiator for the European Union, Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen, requesting to clarify the meanings of vague, undefined terms that bring in sexual agendas harmful to African children and families. It is certain that the answers they will receive from the European Union will either be evasive or very eye-opening.
Regardless of what the European Commission has said, they will come back to the table and consider revisions if African countries refuse to accept the Agreement as it stands. African heads of state collective sacred trust of protecting our continent, national sovereignty, children, families and the cultural and moral values that have made our African nations strong.
PUBLISHED ON
Feb 12,2022 [ VOL
22 , NO
1137]
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