…as it is essential for achieving SDGs
EDWIN MOYO
Shurugwi- Women Coalition of Zimbabwe ( WCoZ) Gweru chapter this week embarked on a Movement Building Initiative to equip women to participate in key decision making processes.
The engagement which was held in Shurugwi on Monday 3 April 2023 comes as the whole world continues to uphold the principles of the international women’ s month which speak to rights and liberties of women emancipation and empowerment.
According to the United Nations (UN) 2023 women’s report, their equal participation and involvement in leadership processes that is in political and public life remained essential towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
This was proven by the statistics which showed that women were underrepresented at all levels of decision-making worldwide and that achieving gender parity in political life was still far from being achieved.
From 136 countries, findings revealed that women constitute nearly 3 million (34 per cent) of elected members in local deliberative bodies. As a result only two countries managed to reach 50% and an additional 20 countries have more than 40 per cent women in local government leadership.
However, in the Zimbabwe, women’s participation in leadership and politics remains static as it stands at 35% in parliament, 16% in local government and 11.5% in Cabinet, The Midweek Watch has learnt.
WCoZ Midlands Province coordinator, Locadia Mavhudzi said, it was crucial to enhance women participation in all sectors and key processes for them to be heard.
“As women in Shurugwi we are here under our WCoZ Movement Building Drive as we are encouraging women to join our organization, a platform which continues to give women the ability to lobby and stand for their rights and freedoms.
“As long as you are a human being, you have your rights and these rights must be respected on the basis of equality and non-discrimination as enshrined in the constitution
‘ WCoZ is there to promote participation of women, under its different clusters that is media, environment, education, health, humanitarian among others. These cluster are there to help our involvement in the key sectors which empower the society,” she added
Mavhudzi added that women were supposed to uplift each other to gain entry into influential leadership positions.
“It is prudent for us as women to support each other to assume positions because if we don’t do so no one will do it for us. We are grateful for the 30% women’s Quota and it’s a step in the right direction.
“Let us stand and promote each other, nothing can be done for us without us. We need to be involved for us to make key decisions. It’s unfortunate that for Shurugwi there is no female candidate to represent women’s issues even at the local authority level, we must change that as women,” she said.
Shurugwi WCoZ focal person, Lillian Mchiuno, highlighted a number of challenges which were facing women in the former scenic mining town.
“We would like to thank WCoZ for this platform, we get to interrogate our issues as they come especially on service delivery and human rights as we are encountering a number of challenges. We lack resources to participate in politics as a result we back track as we cannot stand against our well resourced male counterparts
“We have serious water challenges as a community, we have water which is coming out dirty, you can’t even drink it especially in areas such as Dark City and Town.
“What is council doing to improve our water situation because we fear outbreak of cholera in our town. We therefore call for unity of purpose among women, we want women to be in leadership so that such issues are quickly looked into. What man can do, women can do better as they understand the nation from household level going up,” she said.
A resident, Asimo Simile expressed concern over exorbitant water bills yet there is no water coming out of their taps.
“Our bills are too high, yet we hardly get any water, Council is billing us ZW$25000-35000 especially here in town where I stay.
“Our council seems to be favouring other areas at the expense of others and our plea is that they treat us the same,” she said.
Meanwhile Shurugwi Town Council Ward 3 councillor, Alderman …Mukorovi urged women to support each other in all their endeavors.
Mukorovi told the meeting that Council is in the process of installing bigger tanks to service the growing population as existing infrastructure was built to serve a small community before Independence.
