The 8th of March 2022 is a highly significant day for the world in the effect that it celebrates and honors women for their contribution to the global village, not only is it a celebration but a critical focal point to bring the issue of gender equality and gender equity in reminding the world at the pace at which women rights are being recognized and respected. The theme for this year highlights the core message that was on the minds of the women who started women advocacy which is for an egalitarian society that does not discriminate based on sex and for the destruction of a male dominated political and socio-economic framework.
Women rights are human rights and the notion for discrimination is not a normal trait of any modern society, the Zimbabwean context has a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure the critical involvement of women through a broad mechanism of creating a just society, policy making should be a tool that can advance the interest of women at par with those of the male section and this can be done at local level and national level by involving women more and capturing their contributions to be implemented. There has been considerable effort through legislature to bring focus on women issues such as the presence of proportional representation in local government and the Parliament for women and also within the public and private sector but as of now all these efforts are appearing as a drop in the ocean because of the glaring inconsistencies of the application of gender equity processes and they are more theoretical than practical.
Women of the world need to unite and some to leave their presumed comfort zones and face the reality of the global situation of women such as the rise in sexual assault on women, human trafficking for sexual and exploitative slavery, gender based violence, economic inequalities, social injustices, these are but the crux of the problems affecting women.
The 8th of March 2022 comes at a difficult time as Ukraine is under invasion from Russian forces and this has created a serious humanitarian crisis that has seen one million war refugees flee Ukraine with the majority of them being women and children and as WESE we stand in solidarity with those refugees and closer to home the nation has experienced a number of natural disasters that has led also to displacement for a huge number of people and stand in support and solidarity.
Conclusively we call upon the responsible authorities and society as a whole to combine efforts in fighting against sexual abuse of minors and forced marriages of girls below the legal age, this is a disturbing trend and practice. The case of Memory Machaya died a natural death with society making noise on social media but nothing being done to address the situation and now the man who raped her and consequently led to her death is roaming free and so are thousands of pedophiles who have normalized that harmful culture and practice, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
Source: WESE
