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Progressive
Women's Convention communique
Bulawayo Progressive
Residents' Association
March 08, 2009
We, the Progressive Women of Bulawayo under the
banner of Bulawayo Progressive Residents' Association, having
met on 08 March 2009 at Stanley Hall (Makokoba) in the City of Bulawayo
to deliberate on the various challenges being encountered by the
women residents of Bulawayo; and with full knowledge of our democratic
rights and basic human rights as enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution
of Zimbabwe, do hereby resolve that the following issues are
relevant to the sustainable development of the City of Bulawayo:
1. Consistent
with the principles and resolutions of previous meetings held by
the residents, we applaud and support the position of the Members
of the House of Assembly in reversing the terrible and disastrous
ZINWA takeover of the sewer and water reticulation services in other
urban centres of the country. We celebrate the final realisation
tha the parastatal has neither capital nor the capacity to manage
water resources of any city or town.
2. We regard
the final consumation of the Inclusive Government as an important
step towards addressing the general decline and dilapidation in
the health and education facilities and standards, the worsening
of the food crisis as well as the total collapse of service delivery
in the city of Bulawayo. It represents a step towards the observance
of basic human rights and women's dignity; we are however
concerned by the low levels of women's participation in the
Inclusive Government.
3. The abuse
of women by men or other women is unpalatable hence the current
dispensation should take necessary measures to stop gender-based
discrimination as well as the effective enforcemnt of the Domestic
Violence Act,
4. We also call
upon all women in Zimbabwe to take advantage of this transitional
period to assert their role as community and family builders. We
urge women to fully participate in public and political processes
so as to give gender balance to the national policy framework. This
also means that women must work and support each other on issues
of specific interest,
5. We are disturbed
by the exorbitant and unjustified charges on telephones, Electricity
and water. We are even more worried by the fact that these charges
were affected without notice and are out of touch with the current
economic situation. In this regard, we have mandated the executive
council of the Bulawayo Progressive Residents' Association
to meet with service providers and come up witha sustainable solution
to the crisis,
6. We mandate
the members of the House of Assembly to see to it that women are
well represented in the Constitutional Committees as one of the
ways to improve the Constitutional Draft process to provide a people
driven process that will give women an opportunity to enshrine their
needs and sensibilities so as to bring about effective transformation
of our current governance system. This point appreciates the fact
that Article 6 of Amendment Number 19 does not adequately guarantee
that this process will be people driven and will produce democratic
outcomes,
.
7. We particularly are concerned by the fact that there are low
levels of understanding of very critical laws such as inheritance
laws, propetry ownership, and child custody and maintenance as well
as marriage laws amongst women. We therefore call upon the Association
to undertake workshops or programmes that will enlighten woment
on such issues. This position appreciates that these are the issues
that consitute critical aspects of womanhood,
8. As progressive
women entreprenuers, noting that women have limited access to credit
facilities, do hereby call upon the government under relevant ministries
to undertake to provide loans , skills training and education in
order to facilitate effective economic participation,
9. We call upon
the associsation to undertake advocacy campaigns against cultural
attitudes, norms and behaviours that discriminate against women.
This should also include civic education focusing on women in order
to ensure that they effectively participate in the constitution-making
process.
10. We agree
that the issues of gender are very much linked with HIV and AIDS,
hence it is imperative that the association begins to mainstream
gender and HIV/AIDS into its programming.
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