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WOZA statement on World Refugee Day: Keeping the flame of hope alive
Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA)
June 20, 2006

WOZA is marking this day because we are refugees in our own country. Our lives have been stolen but the flame of hope still burns. We demand the right to earn a living.

A witness describes what happens daily to those who refuse to become criminals and prostitutes and continue to try to earn an honest living.

"I am at Bulawayo Commuter Terminus, 9:30 am on 11 June 2006. A Bulawayo City Council truck (446) parks - there are two occupants. Vendors start to run away, many leave their goods on the pavement. A young girl grabs oranges; a maize vendor manages to balance his tray carrying his fire used to roast maize cobs. The driver of the truck gets out and starts to help himself to 'loot'. After 10 minutes, another eight men (two police officers in uniform) come to the T35 truck carrying vegetables, sweets, fruit and green maize. They load it all in. By this time the driver is standing next to me reading a newspaper, someone walks past and greets him so I discover his name is Mr. Ncube, he has a scar on his face. After all the loot is loaded, Ncube drives away. The vendors come back, the young girl has five oranges and some apples, and the man saved his toothbrushes, chewing gum and sweets and quickly lays them out to sell as if nothing had happened. Amazingly even the young man has his fire alight and is roasting maize for the next customer. What were their options - stay with their goods, get arrested and be forced to pay an admission of guilt fine of $250 thousand or run with what they could carry and come back to start again once the police have gone? Such is the life of a vendor in Zimbabwe."

What do we want from our Government? We demand our right to earn a living with dignity! In Zimbabwe we know that our government will not allow international humanitarian organisations to help provide us with the basic needs of a refugee. They try to control who benefits and unless you have a Zanu PF party card you cannot benefit. So we know better than to ask for food. Even when some of us were to receive tents, the president refused saying, "We are not tent people".

We are not even asking for charity - all we are asking for is our right to earn a living because without that right and the right to keep what we earn, there is no right to life. See the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, Article 22:

1. All peoples shall have the right to their economic, social and cultural development with due regard to their freedom and identity..

2. States shall have the duty ... to ensure the exercise of the right to development See Convention on the Elimination of all forms of discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Article 14: "State parties shall take appropriate measures ..that they participate in and benefit from rural development and ensure the right: (e) to organise self-help groups and co-operatives in order to obtain equal access to economic opportunities through employment or self employment."

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