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Don't use 'culture' to oppress women
Netsai Mushonga
April 22, 2006

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=21&id=613

View the index of articles on the debate around the Domestic Violence Bill

THE Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe was shocked by recent responses to the supplement, which raised awareness on the scourge of domestic violence and called on policy makers to speedily pass the Domestic Violence Bill.

The responses seem to support the abuse of the human rights of women and girls by calling on the policy makers not to enact the Domestic Violence Bill. The responses attack women who are calling for this Bill as being out of hand and make a passionate plea to church leaders to thwart effort to pass the Bill. Somehow this language sounds very much like the language of abusers themselves.

The view that we should not have a Domestic Violence Bill because it is uncultural and will destroy our culture borders on a very insensible way of reasoning. And one dares ask the church to intervene and make sure that the Domestic Violence Bill does not pass. How cultural is the church in Zimbabwe? Isn’t it that the church has transformed our traditional culture into something else?

Our experience is that the church is horrified by domestic violence and works with women’s NGOs and Padare to confront the problem.

Women’s non-governmental organisations were founded to address the gender disparities that are inherent in our societies. For example, Women’s Action Group (WAG) was formed in 1983 as a response to harassment of women by the police during the so-called “Operation Chinyavada”. The police had rounded up about 6 000 women who were walking unaccompanied after 7.00PM because they believed they were soliciting for commercial sex work.

The 6 000 women who were arrested were coming from work, going for funerals, or just going about their ordinary tasks. The police were daft enough to judge, arrest and throw them in prison for soliciting for commercial sex work. Their crime according to us was simply being women. Men walking alone were not arrested; they were left to do their business as citizens of a country.

Women came together to lobby and advocate for the release of the arrested women as well as lobby and advocate for their basic human rights. WAG has remained active up to now since our human rights, as women are still not being respected.

We have researched the issues that we are working on in Zimbabwe and we realise we have a serious problem of domestic violence. We do not need Americans and Europeans to tell us that women and girls are suffering gross violence and abuse if we see that in our lives and on women we live with and serve on a daily basis. A research by Musasa Project in 1996 revealed that 42% of women above the age of 16 years suffer mental/psychological violence, 39% suffer economic violence, 37% suffer psychological violence while 32% suffer violence of a physical nature.

Physical violence refers to women being hit, kicked, punched, and assaulted by weapons or being hit whilst they are pregnant. In the sample of 1 000 women interviewed by Musasa Project in urban, peri-urban and rural areas only 15% responded that they were not suffering any form of violence.

Other organisations like Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association, Girl Child Network and Family Support Trust receive victims and survivors of gender based violence on a daily basis. The victims include women who are psychologically tortured and some who are battered either to death or receive injuries that cause permanent disabilities. Girl children are at even more risk of rape now by elderly men who believe that having sex with a virgin cures one of HIV/Aids. We are all patriotic Zimbabweans but it’s a pity that most of our cultural aspects uphold patriarchy and uphold the abuse of women by placing a serious code of silence on abused women, and blaming gender violence on the victim.

When a woman is abused society will ask her why that happened to her and find an excuse to exonerate the man. We note that this abuse continues to happen and we urgently need legal remedies to address it. We are intelligent women and we do not need foreigners to push us into anything. Africa has actually been setting precedents in terms of achieving set targets for the protection and enhancement of women’s rights. Africa has one of the highest levels of representation of women in decision-making positions. We want to be able to live freely and make decisions that affect us within our families, whether we are married or single, girls or elderly women.

The real cause of gender-based violence is the issue of power and control. Abusers believe that they have authority over their victims and would want to assert themselves and control the woman through violence. It is definitely not the “absence of durable marriage and fellowships between elders and the younger generation”, whatever that means.

Our researches have revealed that girls in the 16-24 age groups are actually targets of older men who prey on these young ones for sex. Ever heard of the famous sweet 16? The girls are comparatively younger and men perceive them as being free from HIV/Aids and easier to persuade into sex. A UNIFEM research in Zimbabwe revealed that the prevalence of HIV/Aids among girls in the 15-24 age group was 2.6 times higher than in men in the same age group. Girls do not get themselves pregnant but older men get into improper unions with them and impregnate them. These men are much older and more sophisticated than the young girls; in fact old enough to be fathers to the girls. Who then is to blame to for this?

We urge men and women to educate themselves on the issues of gender based violence and fight actively to stop this violence. Men should remember that they are fathers and uncles to some of the girls: would they like some men to cut their throats as happened in Masvingo recently, or psychologically abuse them into insanity?

Gender based violence prevents women from being equal citizens in their country. Have men ever asked themselves why women do not own land in the traditional setup? Land is passed from father to son and a single woman finds it very difficult to live freely in her rural home. Why are our property rights so limited when we are equal citizens, or would some men feel good about denying women these basic human rights even in this age?

Lastly there is a new breed of women who are not under anyone’s hand and would want to take charge of their destiny. The number of these women is growing by the day and Minister Oppah Muchinguri is one of these women. We have declared our freedom from violence, control and abuse and are not under anyone’s hand. The Domestic Violence Bill will be passed in parliament very soon and a critical mass of men in Zimbabwe believes that gender violence is a crime.

We, the feminists, will not allow violence against any women. Gender violence should simply go and with a law against domestic violence we will get out of hand and not let anyone beat and abuse us. We shall overcome.

* Nestai Mushonga is Coordinator for the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe

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