Women empowerment — Let us make it happen

08 Mar, 2015 - 06:03 0 Views

The Sunday News

TO many, 8 March is just any other day on the calendar, except to those with a United Nations calendar or to gender and women’s rights activists. Designated International Women’s Day in 1975 by the United Nations after being celebrated since 1911, the day is set aside to reflect on gains, achievements and gaps in the drive for women’s empowerment.
It is also a day set aside to celebrate the lives of ordinary women and their daily struggle to be.

For 48-year-old Sizinikele Ndebele, a resident, just being is reason enough to celebrate.
“Survival is a daily struggle for women. Women have so many roles to play in life under difficult circumstances and without a lot of support structures, just being able to go through each day is an achievement on its own,” she said.

With significant barriers still remaining in achieving women’s empowerment and equality, these cannot overshadow the gains and strides that women have made to have their voices not only heard but for them to be seen, even in spheres previously declared all male.

Women across the globe, and in Zimbabwe, are changing the face of politics and industry, wielding influence to impact on their communities.

Zimbabwe at almost 35, home to over six million women, is yet to achieve most of its goals towards equal representation, equitable distribution of resources and a level playing field for both sexes in all sectors.

Currently without a minister to champion women’s rights, Zimbabwe celebrates this year’s International Women’s Day, almost two years after the ushering in of a new Constitution which sought to do more towards protecting women and their rights than the previous one.

“The new Constitution is one of Zimbabwe’s greatest achievements towards women’s empowerment. All along we were seeing the use of customary law alongside the Roman Dutch law and the old constitution allowed for discrimination on the grounds of custom. This was a big barrier to women’s empowerment since most of the discrimination often took the guise of customary practice,” said constitutional expert, Priscilla Dube.

“For instance, having only married men as guardians of minor children and refusing married women the same position was discriminatory and rooted in cultural and customary practices. The new Constitution has, therefore, gone a long way towards the empowerment of women,” she said.

Gender activist Ruth Ncube said the constitution-making process showed women what they can achieve if they work together and speak with one voice.

“We managed to get most of our demands met because we worked together – women in politics, women’s organisations and civic society — to make sure we pushed for the same things. I am sure if we bring the same commitment and co-operation to issues such as implementation of equal representation, we will make strides,” she said.

Despite all the gains, equal representation remains a sore point for women’s empowerment.
Regardless of sections that speak to this in the Constitution, top governance structures such as the presidium and Cabinet have regressed in the inclusion of women.

Resident, Celia Ncube, said sometimes it’s like taking three steps forward and four back.
“At one point we had a female vice president and we were hopeful that we would see more women in Cabinet and in Parliament. Despite the proportional representation and quota system, we seem to have missed the mark. This time it is not a lack in policies but a lack of commitment and will to implement that has let us down,” she said.

However, all is not lost.
This year the African Union summit ended by calling for the integration and inclusion of the continent’s women in societies as part of the Agenda 2063 goals.

This can only be done with a systematic dismantling of cultural and societal beliefs, practices and laws which discriminate against women in order to guarantee their greater participation in every sector of society.

The United Nations theme for IWD 2015 is: Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it.
It would be difficult for those who have always considered women second-class citizens to picture the role that women play in empowering humanity but as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon says: “When we unleash the power of women, we can secure the future of all.”

For indeed, how can the world realise 100 percent of its goals when 50 percent of its citizen are not allowed to reach their full potential?

For the internationalwomensday.com global hub, the theme is: Make it Happen and it raises the question: What is it that we have to make happen that we have not before.

Many times when the question of women’s empowerment is raised most people feel like they have been here before, these questions have been asked and these same discussions held, so what is it that we have to make happen that we have not done before?

Despite the numerous laws, the debates, the talk shows and the different fora, Zimbabwe still needs to make it happen in the offices where women are still rarely promoted, in our homes where women are still being sexually abused and are victims of domestic violence and in our communities where young girls are still being forced into early marriages.

Busi Bhebhe, a gender activist, says Zimbabwe has made a lot of progress in the past 34 years to empower women with more than 27 pieces of legislation dealing with women’s empowerment and rights.

However, she said the drive for women’s empowerment remains largely on paper, with not much tangible in practice.
“Surely, the men who lead us know nothing about the laws and contexts of the people affected by these laws they sign into Acts.

“I am happy, though, to say that women are providing a formidable force. We are breaking barriers and forcing men to stand up and take notice that with or without the laws, we can contribute meaningfully to the development of this country.
“It has been hard, a lot still remains to be done but still a lot more has changed for the good,” she said.

The women’s movement has been accused of being too elitist and not inclusive enough since women are not a homogenous group.

These are some of the challenges that women’s rights activists will have to grapple with to ensure that all women benefit from this struggle.

Now picture it: a community where a girl can dream to one day be a president without being mocked for it or chief executive officer of a big company, where a woman can fancy her chances of promotion as good as her male colleague, where a woman is not a punching bag for her husband, where wearing a mini skirt is not tantamount to asking to be harassed, where a young girl cannot be forced into a marriage, where our homes are places of nurturing and not battlefields for equality, where accessing sanitary wear is not turned into a joke and where sex is not a consideration in distributing resources.

Now picture all this and make it happen.
Happy International Women’s Day Zimbabwe.

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