By Beverly Bizeki
Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa (ICAPA) recently engaged women from Masvingo to discuss issues affecting women’s rights and their participation in politics and discuss possible solutions that can be drawn to address their plight.
Speaking at the event held at Harvest House Church, ICAPA Masvingo Coordinator Jonah Wakurawarerwa said the main idea was to bring together women with influence in societies to discuss issues affecting women’s rights as well as enlightening them on such.
“The programme is aimed at engaging influential women in societies and the programme will be rolled to political parties to ensure women’s rights are observed in all places. The programme is a continuation of various efforts by the organisation to enlighten women on their rights and comes after the citizen’s charter which focused on unpacking the Zimbabwean law in native language,” said Wakurawarerwa.
Harvest House International Church Pastor Sandra Hlomayi said the programme was one that dealt with women’s issues from the core including challenging them to pursue careers in politics and any other positions often tipped for men.
“We have had a chance to discuss challenges that women face in the political field and in life generally. Many women have been encouraged and challenged to understand and know their rights,” said Hlomayi.
One of the challenges raised by the attendees, Gilbert Mutubuki was the lack of men’s participation in women’s empowerment.
“There is need for us to rope in men when we do women’s rights programmes so that they too are enlightened on what it means to have women in higher positions. Most men think that women who rise to higher positions in politics are of loose morals or are lesser than their male counterparts but these are just myths that need to be debunked and allow men to support female counterparts,” said Mutubuki.
Another attendee Maryanne Manasidze said it was time that women learn to stand up for each other when one rises to power be it in society or in politics.
“It is high time that women start supporting each other. When one of us rises to a position of power, it is best that we support her for the greater good of womanhood. Some women fear to get into the playing field because of fellow women attacking us because in most cases because of the pull her down syndrome which is not good,” said Manasidze.
The programme is one of the many that is targeting to promote women’s participation in politics due to the low numbers of women in political positions. In Masvingo City Council where most of the attendees of the programme fall under, there is only one woman who was elected through the ballot that is ward 1’s councilor Sabina Chikwangwani with the other one, Shantiel Chiwara having been recalled.
The other three are councilors got in through proportional representation.
