The Sunday News
Garikayi Chipfunde, Features Correspondent
Much of the backyard industries in most towns such as Bulawayo, are occupied by informal businesswomen, mostly specialising in dress making or hairdressing among others. More often than not, most women are pushed into informal trade because of poverty and unemployment. Worse still, women in informal trade lack substantial support in terms of access to credit and financing, lack of adequate infrastructure as well as lack of knowledge of the law including intellectual property rights and lack of synergies to bigger markets.
GA district is known for being home to part of the snaking mighty Zambezi River which by way of natural geography imposes itself between Zimbabwe and Zambia and whose downstream product – the Victoria Falls is one of the world’s seven natural wonders.
It is not only known for the protein rich fish of the Zambezi River but for playing host to the mesmerising sight of hot springs that oozes water from some rocks while the melodious sounds of birds species and wild animals along the banks of the mighty river reminds one of the beautiful wild of the district as well as its tamed surroundings replete with crocodile farms.
It has therefore attracted a significant number of tourists who travel from far and near for holidaying far from the town’s madding crowd.
Binga is home to the BaTonga people whose interesting culture is worth exploring too.
The sight highly skilled young and old hardworking women in the informal business of manufacturing and selling various items including beautiful handbags and baskets that are uniquely emblazoned with prints that depict their culture is exciting to the eye.
Their art is testimony that a lot of skill, time, resources and effort has been committed and they do that with a mesmerising easiness as though they own time.
But when one enquires what they get out of their craft, the story suddenly turns from one exciting to a sad and dull one.
Theirs is a story of penury amid poverty.
The hardworking women are not deriving meaningful benefits from their sweat, skills and effort.
They are short-changed by buyers who take advantage of their poor backgrounds and the lack of a competitive local market.
A buyer can travel to Binga to buy the wares as cheap as two US$2 each and put their registered name tag and sells them at their shops at local international airports at a higher price of about US$30 each or export them where they fetch even higher prices in the foreign markets.
At the end of the day, this buyer who had a registered trade name and is formally established becomes more visible to more customers than the real manufacturer of the products operating without any protected intellectual property rights.
The cycle of short-changing the real but poor informal businesswomen of Binga continues.
This scenario is not unique to the informal businesswomen of Binga but affects all women across the country because women constitute a large number of informal traders in the country.
Much of the backyard industries in most towns such as Bulawayo, are occupied by informal businesswomen, mostly specialising in dress making or hairdressing among others.
More often than not, most women are pushed into informal trade because of poverty and unemployment.
Worse still, women in informal trade lack substantial support in terms of access to credit and financing, lack of adequate infrastructure as well as lack of knowledge of the law including intellectual property rights and lack of synergies to bigger markets.
In Zimbabwe, intellectual property laws like Trademark Act [Chapter 26:04] exist to provide protection for intellectual property rights for any individual or group in business to enable them to leverage their business, to become competitive and viable.
These rights are enjoyed on trademarks, industrial designs, patents, geographical indications or collective (certification) marks, trade secrets, utilities models and copyrights (literary and artistic work).
A trademark according to Trademarks Act [Chapter 26:04], comprises of a distinguishing guise, label, name, slogan, device, word, brand, signature, heading, ticket, letter or numeral or any combination among others.
Some businesses like Coca-Cola, Bata shoe manufacturer, Adidas among others have been able to build good images and visibility of their products or services in the mind of the customer and secure a large market share by utilizing intellectual property rights.
According to United States International Chamber of Commerce, protection of intellectual property rights has the potential to promote economic growth, innovation and create employment of any country.
Informal traders have the potential to grow and contribute to the national GDP if they are able to utilise intellectual property rights such as trademarks and geographical indications or collective (certification) marks.
One way of achieving this is by grouping themselves into same line of business and register their businesses and make use of trademarks.
Katiyo Tea is an example of geographical indications, showing that this type of tea is produced in a place called Katiyo, which is found in Manicaland province.
Binga woman can use such names as, Binga Handbags, Binga Jewellery, Binga Fish, among others that serve to remind consumers of the geographical location where they can buy beautiful products.
Trademarks means registering their businesses or products and services under a certain name tag such as Binga Handbags so that people out there know that there are a beautiful collection of bags from Binga.
When this process is successfully done, it means all the processes to formalise their business has been done according to the law.
Whilst they benefit from their businesses, they also contribute to the national purse through paying relevant taxes.
There are still challenges to achieve this noble idea because some women in informal trade during interviews indicated that the process of registering businesses was not a straw in the park.
“When you want to formally register your business you have to go through a laborious process, from one ministry to another such another. Each ministry with its own long processes.
As women, we are most of the time exposed to different types of treatment.
In some instances age and capital requirements, as well as gender (although silent) discriminates us.
We regard this as gender stereotype and sexual violence against women.
Registering intellectual property on the other hand is also expensive because at some stage you need a lawyer to help you to successfully register,” complained one informal businesswoman from Bulawayo.
In order to help and empower poor women from Binga and elsewhere across the country, there is need for a lot of awareness raising efforts and training to equip them with necessary knowledge and skills in business leadership and designing innovative methods to survive in a competitive market.
Some initiatives to incentivise innovative solutions, formalised trade and export need to be considered to boost trade and increase the number of women operating formalised businesses.
This must also be complemented by encouraging consumption of locally produced goods and services.
One other critical area is to improve on infrastructure that would help connect informal women traders to the bigger markets where they can reap better value for their products.
Laws and policies specifically dealing with problems faced by informal women traders must be reformed to empower the disadvantaged members of our society.
Policies like the Zimbabwe National Trade Policy (ZNTP) (2012-2016) must be effected taking into consideration disadvantaged communities like rural areas.
This should be addressed by one of the of ZNTP objectives of facilitating trade flows by removing all barriers to trade and protecting local industry from unfair trade practices and improving access by consumers to a wider range of goods and services.
