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International Women-s Day: Reclaiming the agenda
Catherine Makoni
March 12, 2008

International Women-s Day (IWD) has just come and gone and after the fanfare, we are left to reflect more sombrely on the issues still confronting us as women. In reflecting on our collective situation, l have decided to take a very different and very personal look at issues affecting women in Zimbabwe. Very often as activists there is the temptation to quote oft quoted statistics, to repeat phrases and slogans that while true, are now trite. Their over-use has somewhat desensitised people to the very important issues that we are confronted with. In most instances, we have removed the human face from the statistics and made them just numbers that we trot out. This IWD is especially important to me because a little later on in the month we are going to the polls to hopefully vote our next batch of leaders into power. I am sharing my story as a challenge to my fellow activists in civil society and to these would be leaders. To my fellow activists, the question is a simple one- are you asking the right questions of your friends who are running for political office? To the would be leaders; what are you going to do to address the problems that women face because they are women?

The month of April is a bittersweet month for me. A year ago on the 9th l gave birth to a son. A year ago on the same day, my cousin died after delivering her daughter by caesarean section at a health institution in Bulawayo. Our experiences of child-birth were totally different. She lost her life giving life. My joy in delivering a healthy baby into the world was marred by the loss of my cousin. Instead of having my family around me as l left the hospital, they had to go off for my cousin-s funeral in Bulawayo. Can you imagine what must have been going through the minds of my aunt and uncle when they heard my news? They must have wondered what their daughter did to deserve such a fate.

Zimbabwe was well on track to having one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in Africa. In 1994 the maternal mortality rate was 283 per 100 000. Over the period we have been having the economic and governance crisis, the rate has been steadily climbing. It now stands at 1100 women dying per 100 000. According to statistics, nearly 66% of maternal deaths in Zimbabwe are caused by five common obstetric complications and these are bleeding, infection, complications of abortion, high blood pressure associated with pregnancy and prolonged or obstructed labour. Further, 50% of these deaths are due to factors that can be prevented such as delays in seeking care, delays in reaching care and delays in receiving effective care.

My cousin last year became a statistic. She bled to death after having "successfully" come out of the theatre. In all my life l have never equated pregnancy and childbirth with a death sentence, but in Zimbabwe, it is increasingly getting to be the reality for a lot of women. My cousin is one of the 66% of women who died due to a common obstetric complaint-bleeding. She is one of the 50% who died not because she delayed in seeking care, but because when she sought care, the "care" that she received was not effective. In fact, the care was so ineffective, she died. Now l know the grief, the loss, the anger that my family felt, was felt in 1100 families across Zimbabwe. Everyone knows someone who has died or who has lost a child.

When we talk about the astronomical rate of inflation and demand better economic policies, do call to our minds the 1100 families that lost their mother, daughter, sister and friend because she could not afford the user fees that the health facilities are demanding? When people lament the transport blues, do we have in mind the children in 1100 households in the last year who suddenly became part - orphans when their mothers died because they could not get transport to go to a health facility that could offer them proper care?

I hear a lot of people talking about impunity. In all these conversations all l seem to hear is the alleged impunity with which State security agents commit crimes like torture and beatings on perceived political opponents. If one politician had bled to death in a jail cell somewhere, l am sure we would not have heard the last of it. Now to my knowledge there has been no investigation into the death of my cousin. She bled to death in a hospital bed. Nor have l seen it stated anywhere that the avoidable deaths of the 1100 women who have died during the last year have been investigated. No one has come forward and taken responsibility for the deaths of these women. If that is not impunity then l do not know what is.

The challenge for all of us as we commemorate International Women-s Day this year and as we gear up to vote across the political divide is; do we have this reality in our minds? Who is setting the agenda? Are we amplifying the voices of women? Are demanding accountability? We should not be like the obscenely fat opposition politician decrying the policies of the ruling party that have caused hunger and malnutrition among the people and yet he is not doing anything tangible about it. It-s incongruous, but does he see it?

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