The Sunday News
Makhosi Sibanda
WATER is a fundamental human right recognised in international law particularly in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1979) which calls for the provision of clean drinking-water.
In Zimbabwe a debate over this right has erupted after the Government gave urban centres the green light to install prepaid water meters. The proposal has so far been met with resistance especially in Bulawayo where the local authority is trying out the water meter system in Cowdray Park suburb as a pilot project.
There is a feeling that the commodification of water is a serious violation of this right, especially for women who have the burden of taking care of children.
Residents are a bit reluctant in welcoming this model, as they feel it might develop a faulty billing structure that would see them pay more money to council than they can afford. They also do not understand how the pre-payment plan would work taking into consideration the water rationing regime.
A Cowdray Park resident Lisa Mguni said the decision by the council would have adverse effects on the residents, especially women.
“The council is forcing us to use this pre-paid water system but we do not have the money. Whoever proposed this system did not take into consideration the plight of those who do not have access to regular income because when we run out of water, cholera will attack us here. This pre-paid water system will bring more harm than good to communities,” said Mguni.
Another resident, Monica Dube said water was a basic human right enshrined in the new constitution.
“The new constitution is very clear that water is a basic human right. If the city council installs a pre-paid meter at your house and you run out of water, they would have violated your right,” said Ncube.
Vanessa Sibanda of Women’s Institute for Leadership Development Trust, said water shortages affected women more than their male counterparts.
“Water shortages affect women more than men. When there is no water there is no other alternative, unlike with electricity where you can opt to use firewood or paraffin. As women we have specific sanitary needs, especially during our menstrual cycle and those women who have given birth need constant access to water,” she said.
Bulawayo United Residents’ Association (Bura) chairperson Winos Dube said burdening residents with prepaid water meters was not the solution.
“Water is a people’s right,” he said. “If they install the pre-paid meters, it means they are saying, for people to have water, they should have money. They should give the people water whether they have money or they do not have it.”
Dube said the Government should put into consideration that water is life for the people before implementing the system.
“People need water for consumption, cooking, washing, drinking and many other purposes. We should look at it before we burden the citizens with prepaid water meters.”
Bulawayo Progressive Residents’ Association (BPRA) says one of the many reasons why they are against the move by the council to introduce prepaid water meters as a means of water management in the city is that use of the devices has a string of negative consequences on the livelihoods of women.
“This is well articulated in our position paper on prepaid water meters, which was informed by a research we did, which among other things, unravelled how women were affected by the introduction of prepaid water meters in other African countries that have implemented the policy. This was also based on an analysis of the socio-economic and cultural environment in Zimbabwe,” said BPRA’s information manager Zibusiso Dube.
He said studies indicate that prepaid water meters are likely to lead to poor families not having sustained access to tap water as they may sometimes lack money to purchase the water.
“In these instances, it is often women who are tasked with finding alternative sources of water due to their gendered roles of cooking, bathing children and cleaning the homestead,” said Dube.
He said in that regard, prepaid water meters pose a threat to the gains that women have made in the context of a highly patriarchal Zimbabwean society.
“Time that women could spend participating in critical discourses on issues of development would increasingly be spent fetching water to meet the needs of their families,” said Dube.
He said women also tend to suffer more from use of prepaid water meters due to their biological make up which is different to that of men, and which makes them have different sanitation needs to men.
“Inability to procure adequate amounts of water to meet these sanitation needs is humiliating to women and reduces their dignity. Women have specific sanitation needs and dealing with menstrual hygiene without adequate water is humiliating. In addition, women who have just delivered babies or those who are expecting, would suffer more with the introduction of prepaid water meters as their needs for water are different from those of men and other groupings,” said Dube.
He said it was beyond reasonable doubt that prepaid water meters would serve to affect women more than their male counterparts, dealing a heavy blow on the impressive strides that Zimbabwe has taken towards promoting gender equality in the country.
Millennium Development Goal Number Seven is to halve the number of people without safe and reliable potable water and basic sanitation by end of this year, 2015.
On a global scale, 25 000 people die each day as a result of a combination of poor water quality and insufficient quantity (IIED, 2000) and the lack of access to safe water has been seen as the centre of the poverty trap, especially for women and children who usually suffer the burden of sourcing water for the rest of the family.
Abammeli Human Rights Lawyers Network board member, Nozipho Dube said having water meters installed for residents automatically raises issues of affordability.
“Will the poor, marginalised and unemployed in our society afford to buy water? The answer is a big NO. It is a public secret that lack of water and sanitation is a common cause of cholera and diarrhoea — two deadly illnesses,” said Ms Dube.
She said in the event of a cholera/diarrhoea outbreak women are likely to suffer the most because they are usually the primary care givers.
In late 2013, the Bulawayo City Council made a resolution to introduce prepaid water meters as a water management tool in Bulawayo, with the project to be piloted in Cowdray Park’s Hlalani Kuhle/Garikai area.
The introduction of prepaid water meters has stirred debate and demonstrations in the city and beyond. However, the city council appears to be forging ahead with the project despite spirited resistance mainly from residents with the support of civil society organisations.
The Central Government has also made pronouncements showing that the issue of prepaid water metering is now at the core of Zimbabwe’s urban water supply and management policy.
Kudzani Ndlovu, an academic, said the prepaid water meter system would disadvantage the majority of women who are not empowered financially to afford the new system, resulting in an infringement on their right.
“Women by their default require more water be it due to their sanitation requirements or breastfeeding roles, in their taking care of the home or their families, the system would grossly curtail their effective carrying out of their roles and duties. It may lead to shortage of water and foster a creation of an unclean environment which will pose a threat to health and make society prone to cholera and other such diseases as they will be forced to use unsafe sources,” said Ndlovu.
Responding to concerns by residents Bulawayo Mayor Martin Moyo insists the local authority will not install prepaid water meters in suburbs where there are old meter systems save for sections of Cowdray Park where council is conducting research on the new technology.
