Human Rights of Women
It is a well-established fact that there exist inequalities between men and women due to a long history of male dominance, advanced by cultural, religious, economic and political institutions among many societies. As a result, the majority of women who constitute 52 percent of Zimbabwe's population are largely "disempowered".
Speaking at the launch of the Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN)-led Gender Budgeting and Women's Empowerment Project in June this year, Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development Minister Dr Olivia Muchena said for centuries, women have not enjoyed the same rights and equal access to key resources and opportunities such as education, land, credit and decision-making.
Global statistics also reveal that the vast majority of the world's poor are women, two-thirds of the world's illiterates are female, and of the millions of school age children not in school, the majority are girls. And today, HIV/Aids is rapidly becoming a woman's disease.
In several Southern African countries, more than three-quarters of all young people living with HIV are women. Studies also show that enhancing women's economic options can boost the national economy. With these few facts, what then is women's empowerment?
The past few decades have seen international, regional and national efforts to address gender inequalities as a way of empowering women. The Sadc region recognises that gender equality is at the core of achieving economic well being, improvement of standards of living, quality of life, freedom and social justice as well as peace and security of the people of southern Africa. In this regard, Sadc governments have moved towards setting regional norms and standards for achieving the rights of women.
The Government of Zimbabwe has shown commitment in achieving gender equality through the signing and ratification of a number of regional and international conventions and protocols that aim to promote and acknowledge the rights of women and to achieve gender quality.
These conventions include Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Convention on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR).
There is also the Equal Remuneration Convention (ERC), Dakar Platform for Action, Beijing Declaration of 1995, Sadc Declaration on Gender and Development with its Addendum on Prevention and Eradication of Violence Against Women and Children, the Millennium Declaration of 2000 and the Sadc Protocol on Gender and Development.
Further, the Government of Zimbabwe has followed up its support through affirmative action laws and policies. These include the Domestic Violence Act, the Sexual Offences Act 2001, Legal Age of Majority Act 1982, Labour Relations Act 1984, etc., National Gender Policy (2004) and the National Gender Policy Implementation Strategy and Work Plan (2008-2012).
Despite these efforts, there remains a yawning gap between Zimbabwean men and women in terms of their access to and control over resources, opportunities and decision-making.
A snapshot of the economic and political status of women in Zimbabwe will illustrate the general state of women's empowerment in Zimbabwe.
Economic empowerment for women in Zimbabwe is largely associated with small-scale informal ventures including cross-border trade, vending, hairdressing, subsistence farming, and care work among others. Mainstream economic activities such as mining, banking, manufacturing, construction and retail have remained largely male dominated.
Under the current wave of indigenisation which stipulates that all foreign-owned companies operating in Zimbabwe should cede 51 percent shareholding to locals, women are one of the specialist groups meant to benefit, but there are no specific provisions or deliverables in the Act to guarantee women's active participation.
Part of the Act reads: "The objectives or measures specified in sub-section (1) may be implemented by the Government specifically on behalf of any one or more of the following groups of indigenous Zimbabweans - (a) women and (b) young persons under a prescribed age and (c) disabled persons as defined in the Disabled Person Act".
However, this is all it says in specific reference to women. In the rest of the Act, it is merely implied that women will be part of the indigenous people that should benefit from the indigenisation process.
Interestingly, Central Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono's proposed the Supply and Distribution Indigenisation and Empowerment (SaDIE) Model, which argues for the participation of a broad spectrum of the population in the indigenisation process.
It, however, fails to guarantee women's active participation. What is most disappointing about the SaDIE Model is that it places the issue of women's empowerment as a peripheral issue under "other desirables" and emphasises that women should continue to "play an indispensable role of primary care giving".
Further, SaDIE proposes that cross-border women should be exempted from paying duty, 15 percent of Zimbabwean business should be sold to women, and that the clothing, food and hairdressing sectors should be reserved for women.
While the merits and demerits of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act or SaDIE are debatable, their major shortfall from our viewpoint is that they trivialise women's empowerment.
One wonders whether these gestures are improving the welfare of women or they are a way of politely excluding women from the mainstream economy. If not now, when will women's empowerment become a top priority and not just an additive in Zimbabwe's policies?
On the political scene, statistics from Women in Politics Support network (WIPSU) indicate that there are only 54 women out of 210 parliamentarians in the current parliament and only 38 women councillors out of 1 209.
According to WIPSU, some of the reasons hindering women's participation in the political arena include lack of financial resources, limited access to education and the same work opportunities as men, negative stereotypes and social attitudes, the burden of domestic responsibilities, violence and lack of access to information.
Fundamental shifts and changes to improve the state of women's empowerment can be made through legal and policy reforms. For instance, the women's movement in Zimbabwe is calling for a 50 percent quota system to be incorporated into the new constitution.
This is a system in which 50 percent of the parliamentary seats are reserved for women to address the yawning gap in gender representation.
In Tanzania, 37 of the 42 appointed parliamentary seats are reserved for women. A legislative quota such as in Tanzania provides greater guarantee for increasing women's representation in political structures and can effectively facilitate women's entry into Parliament. Rwanda has a constitutional quota that reserves 24 out of 80 seats for women.
Other short to medium term strategies such as statutory quotas and reserved seats should be applied across the board ie from the candidate list to parliament. This should be done with a view to achieve equity and equality.
A further show of government commitment towards women's empowerment can be done through the national budget. The Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development together with ZWRCN are advocating for Gender Budgeting - a tool used to address biases that arise from resource allocations in recognition of the different roles, needs, responsibilities and relations of women and men in society.
Giving one example of gender budgeting in practice, Dr Muchena said there is need for Government to prioritise and target some women-specific issues for funding or subsidy.
She said there are issues that deserved special attention in budgeting allocation such as reproductive health and specific scholarship funds for girls in identified disciplines of study such as science and engineering.