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More room for improvement - Constitution bulletin day 10
Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights)
July 02, 2010

It seems more work needs to be done to put the COPAC house in order. The management committee of COPAC is expected to sit soon to discuss the remuneration of outreach teams.

Other outreach team members are not happy with the allowance discrepancy between them and the team rapporteurs. However some improvements have also been noted such as punctuality in Mashonaland East which has been attributed to the maps the outreach teams received about three days ago. These maps help them to locate their meeting points without any problems.

As the public meetings continue, reports indicate low participation in urban areas. A meeting held at the Gweru Theatre yesterday recorded a turn up of less than a hundred participants. Reasons for the low turn up are still unclear. The situation is rather different in rural areas. Marondera Rural District participation is averaging between two hundred and five hundred. At a meeting held yesterday in Muchemwa village more than 200 people were present.

Women have been recorded to be dominating the meetings. A particular example is that of the meeting that was held in Muchemwa which recorded more females than males. In Chivi it was also observed that the youth turn up is very low. Some of the explanations include that most youths will be in school during the meetings or some do not know the impotence of the process.

There seems to be some reluctance in some people's participation. In Lower Gwelo, the translations from English to vernacular has left many loopholes in the talking points. This has caused the discussions to fall out in terms of objectivity because the questions and the explanations are not clear.

ZimRights calls for all Zimbabweans to support this constitution making process. Boycotting at this point will not help build the nation. The outreach team should be able to translate the talking points to avoid discouraging people from participating. Every Zimbabwean has a right to participate in this process and language should and must not be a barrier.

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