What it means to be a young woman in southern Africa

Transcription

What it means
to be a young
woman in
southern Africa
A JOURNAL ON AFRICAN WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES
Volume 1 / Issue 2 / September 2011
EDITORIAL
By Alice Kanengoni
Show me a living formation that does not have a
clear strategy for reproducing itself, and I will show
you a formation that is dead! Show me a living
organism that does not reproduce, and I assure you
it is an extinct species!
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Similarly, all formations – be they political parties, labour unions, churches, social
movements and others – that have survived for long, and maintained a healthy level of
vibrancy over long periods of time, have had one thing in common: very clear strategies
for reproducing themselves, by mobilising new and young entrants around their cause.
These youth strategies have taken various formats, shapes and incarnations – from
youth leagues to youth wings to youth brigades. However, no such a strategy is clear
and apparent within women’s movements in southern Africa.
M
any reasons are cited for this apparent
lack of a reproductive strategy for
women’s movements in the region. The most
common one is that women’s movements
have, at the strategic level, been battling
the deliberate de-politicisation of women’s
mobilising and organising, especially through a
phenomenon that is often dubbed the ‘NGOization’ of women’s issues. Equally to blame, is
the de-politicisation of gender mainstreaming
as a strategy towards equality and equity.
This de-politicisation has, over the past two
decades, shifted approaches to women’s rights
to focus on programmes and projects, which
are often run by local and international NGOs
and national government machineries. This
has been done at the expense of organising
to challenge structural causes of gender
inequality, since these programmes have
tended to focus on the practical needs of
women. This has undermined the equally
important strategic efforts by movements to
collectively push for structural transformation
of societies to ensure social justice for women
and men. It is only in the past few years that
feminists and women’s rights activists in the
region have started reclaiming a feminist
agenda that is informed by collective
strategising and collective action.
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Another often cited reason is the apparent
disinterest in, and lack of appreciation of,
feminist ideologies, principles and values by
younger women – especially the post-Beijing
generation – who are viewed as being more
interested in the jobs that NGOs and other
institutions offer, rather than the cause of
dismantling patriarchy and other systems
that oppress women. The argument here is
that younger generations of women lack the
commitment and passion that drove their
mothers and grandmothers to work and push
the agenda forward voluntarily – without any
prospects of donor funding and outside of
any project framework.
As a result, there are yawning gaps between
generations of women in terms of their
understanding and appreciation of activism
for social justice and women’s rights. This is
not a problem that the women’s movements
in the region are unaware of. It has been an
agenda item of many a forum and the need
to attract young and new entrants to the
women’s movement is not disputed. It is the
‘how to’ that has often led to heated debates.
One school of thought argues that personal
passion is enough to draw younger women
to be part of the cause, and so there is no
need for a structured strategy of mentoring
or coaching for young women to be effective
members of women’s movements. But others
argue that passion needs to be ignited, and
even where it exists, it is often not enough to
equip and empower one to be an effective
advocate. For this school of thought,
cross-generational dialogues are central to
addressing these gaps and in turn, ensuring
a steady flow of new blood and energy into
women’s movements.
This is especially important in a region
such as ours, where the majority of the
population happens to be female (52.3
percent of SADC’s approximately 250
million people) – and a significant portion
of this majority are young women. There
are a number of policies, laws and protocols
signed and ratified by our governments
at various levels, committing them to
promoting and protecting women’s rights.
At the regional level, SADC as a bloc has
also made commitments – through protocols
and pronouncements – to a number of
development imperatives for both women
and men in the region. What is missing in
all these commitments is a specific tool
dedicated to young women’s rights and their
future, although a number of protocols and
international instruments do make passing
reference to young women and girls. Is this
enough, for the majority of the population in
the region? Surely not.
Talking to young women themselves, it
is clear that they do not feel that their
governments – and even their mothers and
sisters in the women’s movement – have
done enough to impress upon society
that young women matter. “We are often
lumped together as one homogenous group
that is too impatient to wait for tomorrow
to take over the leadership,” said one at
a feminist leadership course in Mutare in
2010. “We are a diverse group and this
reality has to be reflected in policies and
programmes,” she continued. The young
women’s position is that they do matter and
need to be included in planning and actions
today, as these affect them today as well as
tomorrow. Most are very much against the
notion that young women are the leaders of
tomorrow, and would rather be recognised
as leaders of today! In my opinion, this is
a reasonable demand in a region where (if
nothing is done as a matter of urgency) the
majority of these young women may never
see their ‘tomorrow’ since life expectancy
has fallen significantly in most counties in
the past two decades.
This reality of demography in the region –
particularly how young people, especially
young women and girls, are becoming
heads of households and responsible for
families at an increasingly young age – calls
for a rethink and reconceptualisation of
youth in the region. It is important to note
that the calibration of the age at which one
enters and exits ‘youth’ is varied. It depends
a lot on one’s context – an issue Mazuba
Haanyama grapples with in the first cluster
of articles that deal with conceptualisation
challenges. What is critical in this analysis is
the fact that if society has not effectively and
convincingly conceptualised youth, how then
are we programming and designing policies
that effectively address their realities? It
is also important to rethink the cost of
approaches that wait for young women to
self-motivate and get passionate about their
rights. Women’s movements also need to
rethink this approach and creatively find
ways of mentoring and equipping young
women to amplify their voices.
A number of initiatives have reacted to this
urgent call for change. We have seen in the
past few years in various spaces in southern
Africa the development of structured
mentoring and capacity building initiatives
targeted at young women. These have
taken many formats: training, provision of
spaces and internships among others. Ennie
Chipembere undertakes a critical analysis
of the various models of empowerment
adopted on the continent and beyond, and
argues that there is a need to do more in
terms of sharpening and clearly defining
these approaches to ensure that they are
holistic and effective. A significant number
of organisations, including the Open Society
Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA),
have decided to help enhance the capacity
of young women to contribute to fight
for women’s rights, as illustrated in Tsitsi
Mukamba’s justification of why young
women matter in this ongoing struggle. It
is important to underscore the fact that this
should not be seen as a means to develop a
counter-movement, but rather that these are
efforts aimed at reproducing leaders, who will
ensure that the movements continue to be
vibrant going forward. Such efforts towards
building movements among young women
have not been easy in southern Africa, due to
challenges articulated by Shamillah Wilson.
This issue of BUWA! provides space to
explore the state of our young women’s
welfare and especially their involvement in
social justice movements, as well as weigh
the costs of ignoring them in our strategies
for fighting patriarchy and other vices that
work against the principles of equity and
equality. A second cluster of articles in this
issue provide insight into the quality of life
and livelihoods of young women in the region
– exposing the socio-economic, political, and
professional challenges, opportunities and
threats to their effective participation in social
justice movements. Tendai Makanza outlines
how the current design and architecture
of global and local macro- and microeconomic policies have not been sensitive
to gendered needs of young women, and as
such have exacerbated their plight instead
of creating opportunities for them to break
free from the poverty. Florence Xhaxas and
Glanis Changachirere graphically illustrate
the resultant pathetic quality of life for the
majority of young women, especially in rural,
farming and mining communities in Namibia
and Zimbabwe.
Most articles in this cluster invariably decry
the inability of government and other
responsible institutions to craft policies
and programmes that ensure that young
women are not disadvantaged and also
respond to the disproportionate poverty and
imbalance that already exist due in large part
to patriarchal structures. For instance, Luta
Shaba argues that despite the glaring gaps in
young women’s participation in the business
sector, the Black Economic Empowerment
(BEE) and Indigenisation policies (and their
variations in other countries) have in fact
served to further marginalise women in
general and young women in particular, as
there have not been any mechanisms put in
place to facilitate their participation.
This scenario is not surprising given that
the single most effective tool for facilitating
human development – education – is still
out of reach for most girls on the continent.
Wongani Grace Nkhoma argues that despite
numerous calls, declarations and other such
commitments for girls’ education at various
levels on the continent, the reality still leaves
a lot to be desired. Girls are still not at the
centre of education policies, especially at
higher and tertiary levels, and as a result they
cannot compete on a par with their male
BUWA! A Journal on African Women's Experiences
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Editorial
counterparts in job markets and in accessing
resources and technical know-how to run
effective business ventures.
Adequate and good quality education is
not only critical to women’s participation in
business, but it is also central to ensuring a
good quality of life for women across all other
spheres of their existence. Talent Jumo argues
that the education system has in fact colluded
with patriarchy to sell and promote a skewed
ideology (through stereotyped curricula) that
gives men control over women’s bodies and
their sexuality, thus putting young women’s
lives in danger, given the disproportionate
prevalence of HIV and AIDS among young
women in our region.
One area where large gaps are apparent with
regards to the presence and contribution of
young women is in conflict management and
peace building initiatives. While a sizable
number of countries on the continent have
been, or are currently, involved in internal
or external peace building initiatives, young
women have hardly been part of these
processes. Grace Chirenje explains why this is
so, and challenges Africa to reconceptualise
peace building – a concept she argues has
tended to focus more on nations and national
institutions than people at the community
level, where conflict and peace are in fact felt
and experienced most. Chirenje also argues
that because of this tendency to focus on
institutions as the subject of peace building,
women – especially young women – are
often excluded from peace building efforts
on the continent.
Faced with all the above challenges, it is
disheartening to note that there are very
limited spaces and platforms available for
young women to share their experiences and
ideas about how they can effectively use
their agency to change their circumstances
for better. So-called youth platforms in
the region are often dominated by young
women who are sanctioned by patriarchy
and qualified to be in the public domain. If
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Young women consider themselves the leaders
of today, and not tomorrow ... for tomorrow
may never come for some of them.
and when young women push themselves
forward at such fora, they are often not safe
to express their opinions and to challenge the
systems that disadvantage them. Ironically
and unfortunately, most women’s and
feminist platforms are equally not safe for
young women, as Thatayaone Nnini argues.
Nnini shares a frustrating cycle of having
been invited to many women’s meetings
in her country, Botswana, but not being
empowered and accommodated enough to
effectively participate and make a difference.
Many young women decry what they
perceive as disinterest among the older
generations of sisters to support them and
help them navigate the terrain. There seems
to be a disconnect across generations of
women activists, a problem which Nyaradzai
Gumbodzvanda contends can be remedied
by creating deliberate and structured intergenerational dialogue spaces in feminist
and women’s movements. However, young
women contend that in addition to such
spaces where they exchange and learn from
older generations, there should be spaces
exclusively designed for young women to
share and exchange among themselves. Mary
Mutupa concurs, and illustrates the value of
dedicated spaces that allow young women
to speak out, share and question without fear
of being judged or punished. Mutupa shares
her experiences at the inaugural Southern
African Young Women’s Festival, a space
that marked a turning point in young women’s
spaces in relation to regional-level organising
in southern Africa.
It is good to note that we are seeing change
in this regard, with a number of initiatives
and efforts emerging to create the muchneeded space for young women to network
and share strategies. Key among these are
spaces created by such organisations as the
Association of Women in Development
(AWID), the Young Women Christian
Association (YWCA), and the Southern
African Young Women’s Festival, to name
just a few. There is, however, a need to
expand on the provision of such spaces
and platforms as well as keep them safe for
young women to freely explore possibilities,
create dreams together, and encourage one
another to fly high. Dr Naomie Nyanungo
adds her voice in support of the need for
such exchanges, spaces and connectedness
in her piece, which is a reflection on feminist
solidarity in southern Africa. Dr Nyanungoh
illustrates how one such a gathering of
young women from Mutare, Zimbabwe
in 2010 triggered what turned out to be
a robust solidarity network in response to
sexual violation of women in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
In a situation where young women tend to
have limited spaces and opportunities to meet,
share and exchange at all levels, technology
and information become important tools. The
negative impacts of the gaps in education
have been made worse by serious information
disparities, especially between young women
living in urban areas and those in rural
communities. The adage that ‘information
is power’ still holds true, and those with
information have enjoyed a comparative
advantage over those who do not. Janine
Moolman illustrates this using the case of
young women in the region, and explores
how access to information and the related
information and communication technologies
have aided young women’s organising.
Much as young women are generally
disadvantaged in relation to all the above
compared to their male counterparts, Agness
Chindimba singles out young women with
disabilities as triply affected – because
they are women, because they are disabled
and because they are young. Chindimba
observes the unfortunate reality that feminist
movements have not yet amply placed
women with disabilities firmly on their
feminist agenda. Chindimba contends that
women’s movements in the region and on
the continent cannot claim to be fighting
for women’s emancipation if they do not
mainstream women with disabilities into the
agenda, since this group of women often
experience a double jeopardy when it comes
to exercising their rights as women.
A discouraging reality for most young women
with passion to contribute their agency
to social justice movements is the lack of
resources – financial and other – in our part of
the world. It has been confirmed that resources
for women’s organising and programming
have been dwindling the world over, and in the
global South women have borne the biggest
brunt of this reality. However, this is an even
bigger challenge for young women who are
often perceived as lacking experience to
manage and use resources, and as such face
stiffer competition from more well established
organisations and formations – a case
articulated in Fadzai Muparutsa and Sanushka
Mudaliar’s analysis, where they outline some
of the challenges young women face in this
regard. There is a need for initiatives that
deliberately support young women’s efforts
with not just financial means but also technical
backstopping, capacity and encouragement,
and Faith Phiri shares a case study of such an
effort that supported young women to be part
of the 16 Days campaign in Malawi and other
countries in the region in 2010.
There is a huge cost in terms of human
resources, agency and securing the future of
social justice movements in ignoring young
women in our strategies. Women’s movements
and other social justice movements need to
prioritise youth – especially young women –
and put in place clear plans (and resources)
to develop and equip them, accommodate
them and support their agency in struggles for
equality and better lives.
Young women consider themselves the
leaders of today, and not tomorrow...for
tomorrow may never come for some of
them. Where they have been supported
and encouraged, they have often developed
and grown into very effective leaders, as
illustrated in the interview that Margaret
Chinowaita conducted with Lucy Mazingi,
who has demonstrated that young women
can lead with excellence. The region cannot
afford to ignore the potential that young
women carry, and articles in this issue of
BUWA! illuminate the need to put young
people – especially young women – at the
centre of our strategies for social justice.
Alice Kanengoni is Editor of BUWA! Write to her with feedback on
[email protected]
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CONTENTS
08
What it means to be young in
southern Africa:
Time to reconceputalise ‘youth’
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25
30
35
41
46
By Mazuba Haanyama
Young women’s empowerment model:
a critique
By Ennie Chipembere
Young women matter in realising
an open society
By Tsitsi Mukamba
Movement-building challenges for
young women in southern Africa
74
By Shamillah Wilson
Socio-economic rights for young women
in southern Africa
By Tendai Makanza
The plight of rural women in Namibia:
Lessons for the region
By Florence Khaxas
Young women in marginalised
communities of southern Africa:
The forgotten lot
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64
By Glanis Changachirere
Socio-economic rights for young women
in southern Africa
By Luta Shaba
Girls’ education:
Key to development
By Wongani Grace Nkhoma
Young women and sexual and
reproductive health and rights
By Talent Jumo
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98
25
68
74
78
83
88
88
92
98
101
106
109
Peace building:
Any hope for young women as strategic partners?
By Grace Chirenje
Young women participation:
The theory and the practice
By Thatayaone Nnini
Cross-generational dialogue:
Why it is critical to movement building
By Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda
The Southern African Young Women’s
Festival launched!
By Mary Mutupa Introduction
Reflections on feminist solidarity in
southern Africa
By Hleziphi Naomie Nyanungo (PhD)
The potential of ICT for young
women’s organising
By Jan Moolman
The place of women with disabilities
in feminist movements
By Agness Chindimba
Challenges for mobilising resources
for young women’s work
By Fadzai Muparutsa and Sanushka Mudaliar
Young women’s activism during
the 2010 16 Days campaign
By Faith Phiri
The Buwa! interview:
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Lucy Mazingi on women leaders and
empowering youth in Zimbabwe
By Margaret Chinowaita
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What it means to be young in souther Africa: Time to reconceptualise ‘youth’
What it means to be young in southern Africa:
Time to reconceputalise ‘youth’
By Mazuba Haanyama
“She is budding, strong and confident,
emerging profoundly.
Coming into herself, through herself.
Reaching for more. Imagining more,
envisioning more.
The space between, breathed eternity
– she found and re-discovered herself
somewhere in between”
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most
important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at
the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” (Lorde, 1984:40)
I
t is with this sentiment that I navigate a trail into and through
this paper.
I find myself in a precarious position, having to write coherently and
innovatively about ‘youth’ in southern Africa. As a young person
living, loving and learning in this region, I am inundated with messages
about the ‘youth’ (because we are regarded, for the most part, as a
homogenous, apathetic, lost group). I encounter numerous messages
intricately weaving themselves into a national, regional and global
fabric dictating what it means to be young. Again, as though being
young was a singular subject position without complexity or variation.
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These messages range across a spectrum. I have seen them as large
metaphorical warning signs against the perils of what will surely come
as I steer my way through this labyrinth called youth. Others are
brightly lit banners, showing me and my contemporaries, the dazzling
opportunities ahead, provided I stay in school, obey my parents and
elders, abstain from sex (or at least delay my debut for as long as I
can), and if I really cannot do that, have only one sexual partner for
the rest of my life. This is a mouthful – literally – and a bleak picture,
despite its ardent intent to paint a landscape full of promise.
It is the dichotomous formulation of the concept, ‘youth’ that renders
this picture so bleak. It is the ‘good’ or ‘bad’, the ‘success’ or ‘failure’
that contains the restriction for what can possibly be imagined for
the ‘youth’. As young people, we are either struggling to stay HIV
negative (and dismally failing given the staggering HIV incidence in
our region and in our age bracket) or struggling to get a break to stay
afloat and attain and/or maintain employment.
This paper will discuss what reconceptualising youth may mean
for our region and how we may consider reimagining meanings of
youth. I will also look at how youth as a concept has been understood
through discourses characterized by pathologising constructions of
youth cultures (embedded in a larger discourse of development and
modernity). Lastly, I will attempt to explore what it means to be young
in southern Africa today and hopefully colour this discussion with
multiple meanings and understanding of young people’s livelihoods.
This discussion will conclude with some key questions about what can
be envisioned as possible and desirable for our conceptualisation of
‘youth’ in the region.
Our subjectivities have disappeared in this picture
The nuances of our existences as young people are invisible. I say ‘our’
as I locate myself as a young person (dare I be found out!) yet I’m fully
cognisant of the fact that my experience does not, in any realm, reflect
the experiences of the majority of young people in our region. It is,
however, a collective identity that I wear proudly.
I draw on Amina Mama’s understanding of subjectivities for the purpose
of attempting to propose a deeper and fuller understanding of the
concept youth. I suggest that within a more complex understanding of
subjectivities lies a further understanding of the ways discourse provides
the grounds for subjectivities to be articulated:
There is no universal subject but only particular subjectivities and
subject positions that are located in discourses – and so in the
social sphere – in history and in culture. Subjectivity is a process of
constitution and movement through already constituted positions
(Mama, 1995:98).
Our subjectivities as African youth are being constituted through
highly volatile environments requiring analyses that not only engage
the peculiarities of this ‘gloomy’ picture for the youth, but also
examine the spaces for survival and prosperity. If our analyses of
subjectivities enabled recognition of them as being multiple, dynamic
and conflicted, our production of knowledge on youth cultures
would be greatly enriched. Consequently, I believe there is a need
to reconceptualise the meaning of youth in our region, specifically
given our high HIV infection rates, astronomical unemployment
rates, increased gender-based violence and the overall dismal ‘reality’
for young people. However, and perhaps more importantly, I feel
there is a need to reconceptualise the epistemological construction
of the concept ‘youth’. I am less concerned with the parameters
holding the definition of youth: whether it is 15–35 years as defined
by the African Youth Charter (African youth Charter, 2006), or any
other age distinction, as defined by some political parties. That is
not my primary concern. However, I do recognise that the inclusions
and exclusions from a ‘youth’ bracket have very real and lived
consequences for many, including access to certain services, policies
and spaces. But the parameters of youth become relevant when we
think about the implications on policy and practice in heavily underresourced environments. Social grants that aim to protect young
people have had a considerable impact on who has access to certain
resources in some countries.
I am more concerned with the ways in which we understand the
concept of youth and the lived realities that on a daily basis challenge,
contort and distort this concept. I am interested in how we re-imagine
the ways young people experience their lives in our region. What
are we doing to stay plugged in to the multiple realities experienced
by young people living in southern Africa? How do we seek to
understand these realities, given the current paradigm that exists,
which has produced dominant bodies of knowledge? How are we
nurturing growth amongst young people? How are we learning and
engaging with the youth in ways that promote a paradigm shift in our
thinking of youth?
Unpacking the concept: current paradigms
Perhaps before we can reconceptualise the term ‘youth’ we may need
to reflect upon present day constructions of youth and briefly discuss
how these constructions manifest themselves in young people’s lives.
The call for reconceptualising youth is necessary precisely because
of the dismal ‘realities’ painted for young people, particularly in our
region. These contexts are real, but I will argue that they are not
complete pictures in and of themselves. I have questioned whether
it is in fact possible to engage in a discussion about youth without
reiterating and reinforcing the dominant notions of danger and gloom
associated with youth. I had hoped to avoid reinforcing such notions
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but found myself in a discursive challenge of reimagining the concept
of youth within the limitations of dominant constructions. This being
said, I tread cautiously in describing the pictures of ‘gloom’ that have
reigned for quite some time. In Mamphele Ramphele’s book, Steering
by the Stars, she writes comprehensively about youth cultures in
South Africa and provides a stepping-stone from which to re-think:
The stories in this book capture some of the struggles waged by young
people of New Crossroads who are not yet benefiting from the fruits
of post-Apartheid South Africa. Theirs is a life experience bearing
all the scars of the legacy of the past. Inadequate social amenities.
Overcrowded homes. The daily grind of poverty that undermines the
dignity of ordinary citizens and makes for stressful family relationships.
Underperforming schools that provide little hope for a better future for
them compared to their uneducated parents. Violent homes, schools
and streets that add to the general insecurity in New Crossroads, as is
the case in many other Black townships. And yet these are also stories
of hope – that eternal burning flame in the souls of so many who refuse
to give up. (Ramphele, 2002:11)
Ramphele describes a context plagued by the numerous deficiencies
experienced by young people in South Africa, propelled by poverty,
all of which are relevant. Yet, again the picture is incomplete. I
appreciate Ramphele drawing attention to the issues facing young
people in South Africa, which is not very different from other southern
African countries. Amplifying these realities is important. However,
the young people’s lives she speaks about are not solely characterized
by poverty. Poor young people have lives that are rich and textured,
infused with meaning that goes beyond what is painted here.
‘Hope’ is a woefully incomplete strategy to conceptualise nuanced
youth subjectivities. It is my hope that there are greater ways of
‘surviving’ poverty that allow us to examine and understand fuller
subjectivities. In and amongst these grave conditions, young people
have led and are leading engaging lives that have meaning for their
multiple subjectivities. When we ignore the bigger picture, we fail to
understand the meanings through which poverty and other such social
and political injustices are articulated in young people’s lives.
In writing this I thought at length about spewing out statistics about
the alarmingly high HIV infection rates amongst young people, or the
growing unemployment rates in our region, all of which are relevant
and provide colour to the environments in which we live in. However,
they are not the only constructions of personhood for young people.
I argue that we have become too inundated with messages of ‘gloom’
that deny our subjectivities.
Sex and sexuality is one realm (amongst others), where the notion of
danger and disease have clouded a nuanced understanding of how it
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functions and permeates our lives as young people in the region. How
do we incorporate understandings of sexuality so that they reflect
motion, fluidity, exchange and negotiation, with power being central
to our conceptualizing? Mumbi Machera (2004) defines sexuality
as “… a social-political arena constantly reshaped through cultural,
economic, familial and political relations, all of which are conditioned
through prevailing social organizations of gender, race and class
relationships at given points in time”. This definition allows us to think
beyond the growing cloak of danger transmitted by and through HIV
and AIDS. Our social, cultural and personal landscapes have been
heavily marked by the growing epidemic, yet our sexualities live on
as political, social and cultural productions of our identity and are
also marked by pleasure. Are we unable to love and feel beyond the
discourse of HIV and AIDS? When we speak about sex and sexuality
is there no space to talk about pleasure in a paradigm characterized by
pain and danger? Where are young people’s voices in this dialogue?
Visible but inaudible
In reconceptualising youth, it is important for us to consider the
position of young people’s voices in this dialogue. How do we promote
voice and articulation by the youth in real and meaningful ways, ways
that go beyond tokenism and ‘ensuring we have involved at least one
young person’? In order for the voices and thoughts of young people
to be heard, we have to go beyond simply including young people in
the dialogue. The entire discourse on youth has to be challenged; with
young people being the ones to set the agenda for their issues. I have
sat in many workshops and meetings where young people have been
included as an afterthought, as a means of equitable representation.
The inclusion of young women as equitable gender practices takes
this ‘false’ representation even further. Yet the space is designed in
ways that prohibit, limit and constrain young people’s voices. I am
interested in how we challenge these traditional, historical and political
modes of engagement, again beyond the rhetoric.
“In the transformation of silence into language and action, it is vitally
necessary for each one of us to establish or examine her function
in that transformation and to recognize her role as vital within that
transformation.” (Lorde, 1984: 43).
Southern Africa as a geographical, historical and political location
carries particular meanings of youth as embedded in our ‘traditions’
and ‘cultures’. However, these meanings are not fixed in time or
space. There are collective understandings in our region about the
social positioning of youth in a hierarchy that disallows or prohibits
engagement in certain spaces and articulation of voice in other
spaces. Youth as a transitional phase in this context requires that you
‘earn your stripes’ to gain social power in a community. I believe this
has implications for the ways we conduct ourselves as young people,
beyond our immediate communities. The recognition of voice is not
merely stratified across age, but can be seen across race, gender
and class. I have concerns about how to amplify voices within formal
and informal spaces where power is negotiated, configured, and
articulated through various processes of exchange. The youth’s voices
are largely absent in discussions that affect their lives.
It is important for us to think about alternative spaces for engaging
as young people. Blogging as the new site for knowledge production
and as part of social media may provide useful alternatives. However,
due to the parameters of this paper, I will not engage further with this
idea, but I do see value in examining the ways young people access
alternative spaces for organising themselves.
Precisely because youth by its nature is a transitional phase and as
such it is a harvesting period that begins and ends, its formulation is
consistently fluid. It allows us to be fluid in our thinking and application
of strategies to enhance and engage in young people’s lives. However,
it has also meant that we neglect to create building blocks and
legacies for those to come. For the youth who are politically and
socially engaged in development work, youth advocacy is often a
stepping-stone to future careers in already familiar fields. This is
both important and necessary in creating social advocates who have
investment in issues that affect the youth. Yet I think it is important
for us not to neglect our role in creating a vibrant youth sector within
civil society that is diverse. In engaging our multiple subjectivities and
realities it is pertinent that the voices of young people, who are not
present in public discourse, are engaged with meaningfully.
What does it mean to be a young person in
southern Africa today?
I am not sure I can say with any clarity or certainty what it means to
be young in southern Africa today, especially given that youth has
been defined differently by different people – with the age ranging
anything between 16 and 40! I dare not speak for young people in the
region without doing serious disservice to the multiple identities and
subjectivities that produce and reproduce them daily. However, I can
express some of my personal experiences of being young in southern
Africa, with the intention that it might provide key theoretical threads
into what might be important to other young people in the region.
I am young. I am educated, employed and for the most part often
scared. I live ‘on the brink’ as a young person embedded in a context
that makes me nervous for my livelihood. As a young African woman
I am present to the dangers that threaten me on a daily basis. I have
to be careful when I am driving alone, I have to be careful when I walk
alone at night or during the day. I am warned about the frequency
with which human trafficking occurs. I am vulnerable because I am
young and because I am a woman. I live in a region plagued by HIV
and AIDS. I am ‘on the brink’ of despair and disaster. This is the
context I have come to live with just like many millions of other young
people in this region. Yet we find ways to survive and thrive because
our subjectivities are more than just premised on danger. In this
context, we love, we engage, we think, we dream. This is not intended
to be whimsical or shallow but to recognize that multiple levels upon
which our lives are constructed go beyond pain and danger. Though
we experience those things too, there is more. Reconceptualising
youth requires that we recognise more than the destruction and that
we envision ways of creating societies that vibrantly celebrate our
multiple subjectivities.
I am located in multiple ways – genealogically, politically and
socially. I traverse several spaces through my day-to-day encounters.
Negotiating my identity across these spaces is something that I think
many young people can relate to through their experiences. Though I
have always understood my ancestry as Zambian, I have come to learn
that we have migrated over time from many different places. In search
of prosperity and a desire to provide a ‘better’ life for those to come,
my family (both immediate and extended) have travelled the globe,
creating new constructions of Zambian and African, within a discourse
of migration, development and changing notions of identity. Having
to negotiate this identity in our region raises issues of belonging and
exclusion, political allegiances to nation-states, and what it means to
construct our identities in cultural spaces that may not be ‘home’. With
all negotiations, there is often conflict.
Socially, I have come to straddle various spaces according to the
requirements of the space. The ways in which youth cultures form and
constitute themselves are affected by the social spheres we navigate
our way through. I question the ways in which young people are
creating notions of ‘success’? I often hear discussions about the many
opportunities present for young people and how best to exploit those
opportunities. I wonder how we, as young people, are interpreting
the ideas of success and promise. I wonder to what degree we are
influenced by global images of this success and prosperity? To what
degree do we consume global constructions of identity that harm or
benefit us as young people in the global South?
Being young in the context of HIV and AIDS in southern Africa,
where the youth are most seriously impacted – especially young
women – has had an enormous impact on the ways that sex and
sexuality are understood and practiced. Beyond being affected by the
loss of many family members to the disease, which has had a particular
impact on family structures with the rise of youth-led households, the
prevalence of HIV has altered the way I think about sex and sexuality
in the context of danger. In a context where women’s sexualities are
heavily policed, the presence of HIV and AIDS has further enhanced
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the control and policing of women’s bodies. Whether it is wellmeaning family members or health practitioners, there is a growing
focus on women’s – particularly young women’s – sexuality.
is not one subject position. It is not characterized by one experience,
understanding or reality. It is fluid, dynamic and as mentioned above,
often contested.
What does it mean for young women’s access to choice over their
bodies, when South Africa is the only country in the region where
abortion is legal ‘without restriction as to reason’? (Guttmacher
Institute, 2009). What implications does this have for how women
are able to negotiate their sexual encounters, particularly in a context
characterized by gender-based violence? I think these are questions
we need to continue thinking about. Understanding our multiple
localities is a necessary pre-condition to understanding what it means
to be young in southern Africa today. Being young in southern Africa
Conclusion
What am I saying about reconceptualising youth? It is long overdue
and it is not complete. May we constantly engage in the exercise of
reconceptualising, reimagining, and re-envisioning the concept of youth
by youth. May we stay connected to those more current than ourselves,
those whose lives multiply under the radar. I am excited by the passion
and promise I see in between the lines. I am inspired by what is possible
when we step back and allow the space for new voices to speak.
Mazuba Haanyama is a young writer, thinker and activist. She hails from southern Africa, more specifically
Zambia. She grew up in various countries around the world. Her childhood travels have significantly shaped her
social and political views. Mazuba is passionate about the continent, young people, writing and performance.
These passions shape much of her life’s trajectory. Mazuba manages a poetry performance group, called Rite 2
Speak. She also co-founded a multi-media production company called Black Salt Productions. She currently lives
in leafy Johannesburg and works at OSISA as a Programme Associate for Special Projects.
Bibliography
African Youth Charter, 2006, pg 5
Guttmacher Institute. 2009. ‘Abortion and
Unintended Pregnancy in Africa’ available at
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/IB_AWWAfrica.pdf, 2011.
Lorde, A. 1984. Sister Outsider. New York:
Random House
Machera, M. 2004. ‘Opening a Can of
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Worms: A Debate of Female Sexuality in
the Lecture Theatre’. In S. Arnfred (eds).
Re-thinking Sexualities in Africa. Uppsala,
Sweden: The Nordic Africa Institute.
Mama, A. 1995. Beyond the Masks: Race,
Gender and Subjectivity. United Kingdom:
Routledge
Niebuhr. R. 2002. Young Africa: Policy
Blueprint for a Continent of Youth. South
Africa: Mandala Publishers
Nuttall, Sarah, 2004. ‘Stylizing the Self: The
Y Generation in Rosebank, Johannesburg’. In
Public Culture. Vol. 16, Issue 3. Pg 430-452.
North Carolina: Duke University Press
Ramphele, M. 2002. Steering by the Stars:
Being young in South Africa. Cape Town:
Tafelberg Publishers
T
his paper highlights some of the youth
empowerment models that exist and
juxtaposes the approaches, strategies and tools
that women’s groups and other organizations use in
young women’s empowerment. The purpose is to
critique our efforts and propose elements of holistic
young women’s empowerment models that could
best respond to empowerment needs of young
women in southern Africa.
Young women’s empowerment
model: a critique
By Ennie Chipembere
The role and space of young women in the women’s movement has
become a pressing issue in the last decade of women’s organising.
It is now a trend at most fora to have sessions focusing on intergenerational relationship building and young women’s activism, and
some women’s groups are dedicating resources and efforts to focus
on young women’s empowerment. Various approaches, strategies
and tools have been used to empower young women. However,
unlike youth empowerment, there is a dearth of clearly articulated
models of how best to do this or documented conversations about
it in the women’s movement in Africa. What one finds is a lot of
‘doing’ and limited investment in conceptualising, programming
and developing models that holistically respond to the
empowerment needs of young women.
Defining empowerment: a conceptual
understanding
As early as the 1970s, the link between power and
poverty was made by dependency theorists like
Walter Rodney as they postulated how Europe
underdeveloped Africa. The gist of the ‘centreperiphery’ debate was that individuals, structures,
systems and nations that had power over developing
nations due to colonization and exploitation of
natural resources, used this comparative advantage to
continuously perpetuate Africa’s underdevelopment.
While this focused on nations and impacted whole
societies, “the anthropological tradition of seeing
‘change’ as a constant societal process embedded in
social, economic and political power and the refining
of ‘alternative’ development paradigms of the 1980s
and 1990s appear to have coalesced in the early 1990s
around the notion of empowerment.”1 From this period
to date, the concept of empowerment is widely used to
describe various states of individual, group, institutional
and community change. It has multiple definitions
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Young women’s empowerment model: a critique
whose convergence is mainly around the types of empowerment, the
levels, its core elements, main strategies and tactics utilized to achieve
it. This section of the article will endeavour to provide a conceptual
understanding of the above and provide insights into implications for
young women’s empowerment.
The concept of empowerment, though not easily defined, manifests
itself in reality as both internal and external change. This introduces
two distinct, but interrelated types of empowerment – psychological
empowerment and political empowerment. Gruber and Trickett
(1987) define psychological empowerment as happening at the level
of individual consciousness and feelings, and the focus is on internal
resources such as self-awareness, self-efficacy and the internal locus
of control. On the other hand, they defined political empowerment as
change at a personal level that enables an individual to participate in
decision-making that affects their life. 2
It is interesting to note that both types of empowerment articulated
above have a focus on power, which is an aspect of the concept that can
be found in four theoretical and experiential influences explained below.
The first are the psychological constructs of empowerment in terms of
the personality construct advanced by Rotter (1966) and the cognitive
construct from Bandura (1989). Under the personality construct
postulated by Rotter, individual empowerment is explained using the
concept of locus of control. Simply put, if you have an ‘external locus of
control’, you are mainly influenced and impacted negatively by forces
external to your existence, e.g. socially constructed roles of what you
can or cannot do with your life, and cultural expectations of propriety
that limit your freedom of expression and association. An external
locus of control means you feel and believe that you have no control
or power to fight these external forces that affect your ability to make
decisions and choices. On the other hand, an ‘internal locus of control’
means that you are personally motivated, can push back on social
pressures and possess inner reserves to challenge and absorb the
consequences of progressive choices.
Bandura, in terms of the cognitive construct of individual
empowerment expands on the above with his self-efficacy concept.
Belief in yourself and your ability to achieve life goals is very much
linked to your thinking patterns, which can either enable or hamper
goal achievement. “This belief determines how a person will judge
her situation, and influences the degree of motivation that people
mobilize and sustain in given tasks, their degree of endurance in
situations of stress and their vulnerability to depression, and the
activities and the environmental frameworks that people choose.”3
In essence, one’s emotional intelligence is high, meaning that one is
self-aware, has the ability to self-manage and can hold one’s own or
positively ‘show up’ in a relationship or organizational space. Self14
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efficacy is very much in line with the feminist concept of self-worth,
which is a positive personal outlook.
While the connection between self-efficacy and empowerment is
clear and the connection is arguably important, it is not the same with
locus of control. A critique by Levenson (1981) of the locus of control
concept is that it is a “situation-contingent quality, which may appear
or disappear according to the circumstances, with no clear connection
to the personality.”4 I would like to argue that while this is probably
true to a certain extent, a stronger internal locus of control and a
high self-esteem are some of the main expected outcomes of many
young women’s empowerment models focused on feminism, life skills
and leadership development training. Recent conversations in the
women’s movement in Africa about self-care and self-management
as being equally crucial to sustaining the movement as much as the
political work we do, support this point.5
Second is Paulo Freire’s popular education of the 1970s as the vehicle
of breaking the shackles of oppression and a culture of silence. The
latter is very much aligned to feminist strategies of utilizing personal
empowerment as a vehicle for helping women feel safe enough to
speak about abuse, discrimination and exclusion as a starting point
to challenging and bringing about change. Freire saw literacy as a
crucial way of increasing awareness and consciousness that resulted
in “power to do, to be able, and of feeling more capable and in
control of situations.” Freire brings in the link between two levels of
empowerment – individual agency and group capacity – to engage
and take action. “It also implies the breaking down of decades of
passive acceptance and strengthening the abilities of marginalized
groups to engage as legitimate development actors.”6 This theory of
change is the basis of many young women’s empowerment models
and the basis of young women- focused programme designs or
initiatives that emphasize access to information, platforms and
networks where knowledge is shared and exposure to economic and
political processes is intended to result in critical consciousness and
collective action.
Thirdly, there is Michel Foucault’s ‘power-knowledge’ link that offers
a post-modern perspective, which “emphasizes the complexity
and ambiguity of empowerment as the lived experience of those
who are empowered…and the conception of power as a network of
influence embedded in the system and prevailing discourse of power…
Discourse is not produced without context and cannot be understood
without taking context into consideration”7 The issue of discourse
is important to feminist activists as narratives can either liberate or
entrap women in socially-determined cultural assumptions of who
should hold power, who is included and excluded in herstory and in
decision-making spaces.
Language, naming and framing issues from a feminist perspective
politicize our work and equip us with tools for challenging the
structural basis of inequality, thus allowing us to define and control
environmental factors. For example, from Foucalt’s post-modernist
writings about the self-policing impact on society of ‘Discipline and
Punishment’ (1975) 8 , this resonates with young women’s experiences
of subtle power as a result of the unspoken consequences of disclosing
sexual orientation, rape or HIV status. The responses from family
members or society (e.g. corrective rape for young lesbian women
in South Africa and the stigma associated with living with HIV and
AIDS) all result in self-policing, as one does not have freedom of
expression in the continuum of institutions and spaces that young
women are part of – from the home to the market and the school. This
is because “institutions are rules, norms, and patterned behaviour that
may or may not take organizational form”.9
This work is closely linked to Foucault’s three-volume book on The
History of Sexuality (1976), which talks about sexuality and power at
a personal level and sexuality and bio-power at a state level.10 At a
personal level, this takes the form of facile discourse of women as
sexually repressed beings who do not need to experience sexual
pleasure in relationships or whose sexuality has to be controlled by
harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation. Biopower
at a state level is government efforts or programmes that violate
women’s bodily integrity under the guise of population control and
risk regulation, for example, the forced sterilizations of young women
living with HIV and AIDS in Namibia. This is seminal work in terms of
the feminist concept of sexual autonomy and bodily integrity, which
emphasizes women’s empowerment in terms of their right to pleasure,
choice, reproductive health, access to abortion, comprehensive
sex education, family planning and freedom from violence or
harmful traditional practices. In Foucault’s treatment of power and
empowerment, it is clear that the continuum of empowerment has
moved from the individual, to the group as a vehicle for organizing for
change to challenge the community and state institutions as sites of
the above violations.
Finally, feminist analysis of empowerment that gained currency in the
1980s and pushed for a more transformational agenda beyond the
individual to promote collective action towards challenging power
structures that oppress women. Feminist thinking brought in the
concept of the personal being political that removed the division
between the private space and the public space. This helped and
continues to help young women in several ways. One such way is an
appreciation that power operated in both these spaces and mutually
reinforced women’s oppression in two ways; personal shame to expose
problems or abuses that were and are still viewed as ‘private’ family
matters, which meant there would be no ‘public’ recognition of these
or support to change the situation beyond the individual woman.
It also meant that solutions to women’s problems in the legal arena
for many years in Zimbabwe,
domestic violence was seen as a
family matter that was supposed
to be resolved at that level and
women who sought redress from
the police were usually turned
back home to their space of abuse.
remained at a public space level, with cultural practices regulating at
the family or private level. For example, for many years in Zimbabwe,
domestic violence was seen as a family matter that was supposed to
be resolved at that level, and women who sought redress from the
police were usually turned back home to their space of abuse. Hence
both the content of the law and the structures for implementation
were not facilitating individual empowerment holistically, hence
the need to politicize the empowerment process to have specific
outcomes such as legislative change.
In 1997, Jo Rowlands’ work with women in Honduras added to the
feminist thinking on empowerment by defining four types of power,
as explained in Table 1. This has further helped women to understand
power, how it operates and the importance of addressing unequal
power relations as a cause of disempowerment. Several debates are
ongoing about whether empowerment should just be a process, an
outcome or both; furthermore, is change brought about by individual
agency or a focus on transforming structures that oppress women?
The relationship between the above issues and young women’s
empowerment models is that this influences your theory of change,
programme focus and expected programme outcomes. The pros and
cons of either of the two are captured in Table 1.
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TABLE 1:
Comparing objectives from an agency and a structural perspective
Type of power relation
An ‘agency’ approach to empowerment
Transforming ‘structures’ for empowerment
Power Over:
the ability to coerce and influence the
actions and thoughts of the powerless
Changes in power relations within households
and communities and at the macro level,
Respect equal rights of others, challenge to
e.g. increased role in decision making and
inequality and unfair privileges
bargaining power
Power To:
the capacity to act, to organise and
change existing hierarchies
Increased skills, access and control over
income and resources, and access to markets
and networks
Increased skills and resources to challenge
injustice and inequality faced by others
Power With:
increased power from collective action,
social mobilization and alliance building
Organization of the less powerful to enhance
abilities to change power relations Increased
participation of the less powerful
Supportive organization of those with power to
challenge injustice, inequality, discrimination
and stigma
Power from Within:
increased individual consciousness,
self-dignity and awareness
Increased confidence and awareness of
choices and rights; widened aspirations and
ability to transform aspiration into action
Changes in attitudes and stereotypes;
commitment to change
Source: Adapted by Cecilia Luttrell and Sitna Quiroz et al, from Mayoux (2003)
in ODI Working Paper 308 – Understanding and operationalising empowerment,
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4525.pdf
The four theories provide a multi-dimensional analytical criterion for
understanding young women’s empowerment models. This includes
the following: types of empowerment as psychological/personal
and political/transformative, levels of empowerment as individual,
collective/group, organizational that are closely linked to community
and institutional; how empowerment and power evolves in the above
e.g. debates on what to emphasize – individual agency or structural
change in the process of empowerment; whether empowerment is
only a process, an outcome or both and the implications of this.
In conclusion, the definition of empowerment for purposes of
this article is that it is a multiple-level concept that is defined as
any intervention or process that results in the development of young
women’s self-worth, their ability to act on their own behalf or with
others and/or equips them to challenge and transform structures that
oppress them. The level of empowerment is important to consider,
is it individual, collective or both? This determines the theory
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of change, the goals of the programme, expected outcomes and
methodology of facilitating empowerment.
In addition to the four broad theories articulated above, there are
three key distinctions that are worth exploring in understanding of
young women’s empowerment. These are:
• The three-lens approach to youth empowerment;
• Location of young women in groups and processes; and
• Core elements of empowerment.
The first consideration is the approach to engaging young women that
has been selected. In each of the models presented above, either the
group/individual/organization is working for young women, working
with young women or supporting young women as leaders of their own
groups and initiatives.
When young women are one of the target groups or beneficiaries
of a project/programme, this would be defined as working for
young women. In this instance, they are adequately informed about
the programme that is designed and developed by others for their
benefit. The assumption here is that young women are not able to
do the things themselves, and so they can benefit from projects
carried out on their behalf by adults and others.
Working with young women is different in so far as the young
women are fully informed, engaged as partners, and consulted in
the programme design and in the implementation of collaborative
interventions. This approach supposes that young women
generally need experience before leading their own initiatives,
groups and/or organizations. Should the referred to progression
occur, supporting young women as leaders entails facilitating and
enabling them to do things for themselves. If they are in existing
structures for instance, opening up space for young women to
make decisions and take responsibility for specific projects is
one way while another is supporting stand-alone young women’s
groups or initiatives in various ways.
The above distinctions all have pros and cons and it is important
to critically reflect on this in our work related to young
women’s empowerment because our approach determines our
programming model and level of investment.
Second, another set of distinctions to consider is the space young
women are located in the four settings that follow. The first is
their location in women’s groups/organizations and processes;
the second is mainstream mixed coalitions/organizations and
processes; the third is in mixed youth networks/organizations
and processes; and the last is spaces run and led exclusively by
young women. Once again the three ways of working with young
women would apply in these contexts, thus further adding to
the complexity of designing and implementing effective young
women’s programmes. This is because the dynamics, politics, focus
areas, strategies and core interventions differ, even though the
vision for change in young women’s lives and the expected guiding
principles and values may be similar.
Finally, outlining the core elements of empowerment is very
important, as any of these are usually the expected outcomes
of young women’s empowerment programmes. Hence, the
assessment criterion here is the linkage between the theory of
change, which should point to the understanding of empowerment
of the organization involved, the change agenda and strategies
used and whether this results in any of the dimensions of
empowerment being achieved. Box 2 summarizes these elements
and dimensions of empowerment.
BOX 2:
Various dimensions of empowerment
Economic elements
Economic empowerment seeks to ensure that people have
the appropriate skills, capabilities and resources and access
to secure and sustainable incomes and livelihoods. Related to
this, some organizations focus heavily on the importance of
access to assets and resources.
Human and social elements
Empowerment as a multi-dimensional social process that
helps people gain control over their own lives. This is a process
that fosters power (that is, the capacity to implement) in
people, for use in their own lives, their communities and their
society, by being able to act on issues that they define as
important (Page and Czuba, 1999).
Political elements
The capacity to analyse, organize and mobilize. This results
in the collective action that is needed for collective change. It
is often related to a rights-based approach to empowerment
and the empowering of citizens to claim their rights and
entitlements (Piron and Watkins, 2004).
Cultural elements
The redefining of rules and norms and the recreating of
cultural and symbolic practices (Stromquist, 1993). This may
involve focusing on minority rights by using culture as an
entry point.
Source: Adapted from Cecilia Luttrell and Sitna Quiroz et al, ODI Working Paper
308 – Understanding and operationalising empowerment, http://www.odi.org.uk/
resources/download/4525.pdf
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Existing models of youth empowerment and application to
young women’s empowerment
This section briefly introduces a number of existing conceptual
models on youth empowerment and highlights how they have been
applied globally in young women’s empowerment. The list, though
not exhaustive, attempts to showcase examples from various countries
and contexts. Each model is reviewed using the theoretical and
conceptual dimensions discussed above, including:
• The type of empowerment;
• The three-lens approach to youth empowerment
(working for, with or supporting);
• Level of empowerment: individual and/or collective, community
and/or institutional;
• The core empowerment elements;
• Expected outcomes at the individual and/or collective levels; and
• The strategies and tactics utilized to facilitate young
women’s empowerment.
Adolescent Empowerment Cycle (AEC)11
This model, aimed at boosting adolescent self-esteem linked
to meaningful participation in roles that contribute to skill and
community development, is attributed to Chinman and Linney (1998).
Its theoretical basis is linked to psychological concepts of adolescent
identity formation, social bonding and positive reinforcement. AEC’s
theory of change is that if youth are engaged in meaningful activities
such as community service and trainings that develop their skills and
have positive reinforcement and recognition from adults, this serves as
a preventive measure against youth engagement in social ills.
In this model, the approach can be classified as mainly working
for young women as beneficiaries, which is usually groundwork for
working with young women as partners. Empowerment is mainly at
an individual level in terms of enhanced self-esteem, with an inherent
assumption that this will stimulate youth contribution to community
development in later life.
A feminist analysis of this model highlights the elements of power
within, power to and power with others. What is not clear is whether
there is a socio-political change agenda explicit in this youth
empowerment model itself. However, in its application to young
women’s empowerment, using the example below, this seems to be
inherent in the model, depending on the methods, tools, processes
and strategies used.
In Uganda, the Mentoring and Empowerment Programme for Young
Women (MEMPROW) targets young women between the ages
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of 14 and 25 in institutions of learning. MEMPROW’s mission is
to develop the capacity of young women for leadership and social
survival. This is done through its core programme of Survival Skills
Training, and at the end of the two week training “there was a major
shift in the perspectives of the young women, especially in who they
wanted to be. For example, at the beginning of the training, when
the girls were asked what their future plans were, all but two girls
wanted a good husband, a nice house and a car. When asked the
same at the end of the training, all of them identified a professional
career. One of the girls wanted to work, make a lot of money and
buy a plane to take them around the world. When asked what they
learnt, ‘to appreciate myself’ was the most common answer.”12 After
the training, positive reinforcement is provided through the intergenerational mentoring and peer learning in MEMPROW Girls
Associations that are formed post training.
The transformational agenda of MEMPROW’s work is to focus
on sexual and gender-based violence as the root cause of young
women’s subordination and women’s rights abuses. This is infused
in its programmes through the content of the social skills training.
MEMPROW offers individual counselling support to at-risk young
women or survivors of abuse; they link them with legal support and
other services, and also have specific interventions with educational
institutions to influence the school administration in cases of student
sexual abuse.
Similarly, the Moremi Initiative – Women’s Initiative for Africa
operating in Ghana and Nigeria exists to facilitate the long-term
development of young women leaders with the hope that they
will work towards the transformation of institutions that oppress
women. They have two main programmes targeting adolescent girls
in schools and young women between 19–25 years. Both the Girls
Congress and the MILEAD Fellows Program13 offer a year-long
experiential education programme that includes a three-week
leadership institute, inter-generational mentorship, peer networking,
career orientation, social networking technologies and practical
community projects.
The two highlighted initiatives have been crucial catalysts to young
women’s activism and the foundation for working with young
women as partners, but they both face challenges. Continuous
mentoring and follow-up for the young women during holidays is
very difficult, particularly during the school holidays in the case of
MEMPROW. Parents are difficult to deal with, and this is where
empowerment models centred on learning institutions and with a
focus on individual leadership do not adequately engage with the
context where the young women come from. Financial resources for
both scaling up and providing safe houses for those most at risk are
another major challenge in such models.
The Education Empowerment Model
– Wallerstein, Sanchez-Merki & Velarde (2005)14
This model stresses the use of skill and knowledge development that
helps youths to engage in social action and change that is linked to
individual empowerment and community organizing. It is steeped in
Freirian theories of critical social praxis and psychological concepts
of protection-motivation behaviour change theory. Paulo Freire
postulated that education that liberates is one that has elements
of listening, dialogue, critical reflection and reflective action. The
model is meant to bridge the gap between individual behaviour
change and group efforts for social change. An important aspect
of this model is that even though facilitators lead dialogue sessions
about their personal lives, youth are engaged as ‘co-learners’, giving
them an opportunity to contribute to adult’s learning through their
participation. The expected outcome of any programme utilizing this
model is that at the end, youth will have moved from reflection to
action by engaging in community action projects.
In Uganda, Akina Mama waAfrica (AMwA) has for the past 13 years
run the African Women’s Leadership Institute (AWLI) along this
model. AMwA is well known for its two-week intensive residential
leadership training institute using a framework that focuses on three
areas: namely personal empowerment grounded in the concept of
feminism and human rights etc.; organizational development targeting
the development of strategic thinking skills; and the transfer of skills
and knowledge in various ways e.g. community mobilization, intergenerational linkages and advocacy (P.O.T Framework). There are
many young women who have gone through AWLIs and have been
inspired to carry forward the feminist change agenda.
An example of the impact of AMwA’s work in Kenya is the existence
of the Young Women’s Leadership Institute (YWLI), set up in 1999
by young women who attended an AWLI. YWLI’s programmes
go a step further because in addition to nurturing young women’s
leadership development and creating a safe space for dialogues on
sexuality and reproductive health rights, facilitated by young women,
the organization offers a feminist internship programme.15 YWLI’s
website elaborately describes this feminist internship programme
and its impact at individual, organizational and community level,
which can be illustrated by the Binti Initiative. “The Binti project was
innovated by Esther Wambui in the 2007 internship period and has
been incorporated into YWLI programmes. The aim of Binti is using
football as an avenue to reach out to adolescent girls in and out of
school to give them an opportunity to come together to build their
capacity and realize their full potential as young women leaders in
their community. Binti was started to allow the girls to share some
of the challenges they face as girls living in Kawangware, a lowincome settlement in Nairobi. The Binti initiative uses girls' soccer
as an avenue to focus on sexuality and reproductive health rights of
young women. Binti seeks to address problems of early pregnancy,
drug abuse, child prostitution, sexually transmitted infections, early
motherhood and sexual abuse that are barriers to education of girls
and young women.”16
The use of girls’ soccer as part of a youth engagement strategy that
integrates gender equity and HIV prevention has also been used in
Botswana.17 Botswana’s South East District Youth Empowerment
League (SEDYEL) is a project run by the South East District Council
to facilitate youth HIV prevention. SEDYEL has three strands of work,
namely; sports, peer education and safe spaces for young women.
The council adopted a participatory programme design ‘for youth,
by youth’ whereby the youth are recognised as an integral resource
in the community. The programme has resulted in youth governance
structures that locate the youth at the centre of planning and
decision-making. Just like in Kenya, this has broken stereotypes about
soccer being the preserve of young men and opened up dialogues in
the Girls Forums. Available reports however, point out that evidence
of the impact of this is limited to anecdotal feedback from young
women who can testify that ‘there is a positive change in their lives’.
This raises the question of measuring young women’s empowerment
programmes as an area of concern and much needed investment.
Examples of YWLIs that have an impact on individual, organizational
and community level emerging out of many intensive young women’s
leadership development trainings are very few and far between. This
is despite the fact that many of these programmes have mentorship
and some experiential practical project for application of learning.
The question therefore is what is the missing link? Should we revisit
young women’s empowerment approaches, strategies and tools
and reconceptualise how we facilitate the empowerment of young
women? This is the apposite question for feminist and women’s rights
movements in southern Africa today.
Youth Development and Empowerment Programme Model
(YD & E)18
This model, developed by Kim (1998) has all the elements of AEC
above, except it explicitly focuses on the meaningful participation of
youth in community service projects as part of preparing them for
community leadership. In addition to personal empowerment, there is
a strong engagement with the community, and youth are recognized
as assets and resources. In this model, the approach can be classified
as working with youth as partners, and as part of experience building.
Individual and community empowerment are intertwined. Furthermore,
the location of young women in a mixed youth group illustrated in
the brief example below (as part of ActionAid Myanmar Fellows
Program) highlights specific challenges that young women face in
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the implementation of such a model of community engagement. For
example, acceptance in the community by male leaders is a challenge
as illustrated in this statement: “My welcome was not very warm by the
Village Headman. He was doubtful when I told him I came here to work
for community development. He undermined me saying ‘how can a
young woman do social change work in a village? He mocked me saying
I could not make any difference being a woman.”19
There is an opportunity to follow up with in-depth research work
towards a comparative analysis of the two contexts in the application
of this model and experiences of the young women in relation to
empowerment. Throw in the added dimension of whether the young
women are from that country or outside the country (North or South),
and important development work dynamics start to emerge.
Myanmar - The
Change Makers –
ActionAid Myanmar
Fellows Program
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The Transactional Partnering Model (TTP)20
This model evolved from a qualitative study by Cargo (2003) and
is the first to emphasize shared power between adults and youths in
a mutual process of empowerment. The adult role is facilitation and
enabling leadership in youth-led community-change activities. The
theory of change of TTP is that if youths are exposed to leadership
opportunities and their social action initiatives are incubated in a
safe and supportive environment, this will result in learning and
empowerment both at individual and community levels. In this model,
the approach can be classified as supporting young women as leaders
of their own groups and initiatives. An empowerment continuum from
the individual to the group, right up to the community level is usually
explicit in programmes based on this model.
While the usual focus is stand-alone young women’s groups, there
are cases of young women’s groups being given space to lead some
initiatives within women’s organizations/coalitions, mixed youth groups
and mainstream organization/processes. The above permutations
once again would require more detailed unpacking, as stand-alone
and ‘mainstreamed’ applications of this model present opportunities
and challenges that require closer analysis before recommending one
or the other as ideal situations for young women’s empowerment. This
could again be another interesting research piece to inform women’s
movements going forward.
One such example of this model is the Katswe Sistahood in
Zimbabwe. Katswe Sistahood has at their core a focus on sexuality
issues in so far as they are the source of most violations young women
face. 21 Formed by a group of young women in 2007, it provides a
platform for young women to organize and articulate their needs
in respect to sexual and reproductive health and rights. Katswe
Sistahood has been incubated by Hope Chigudu and other feminists
since its formation. These have provided political, technical and moral
support for the group. Exposure of some members of the group to
spaces like the African Feminist Forum expanded their conviction
and visibility, which resulted in more support and involvement in other
women’s movement processes.
Another example of TTP is the Swaziland Young Women’s Network
(SYWON). SYWON’s formation was inspired by the Africa
University-Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)
regional course on feminism for young women. After the 2009
training, one of the alumni, together with a group of young women
in Swaziland, came together to form SYWON. Organizational
development support to SYWON is facilitated through their being
housed by the International Community of Women Living with
HIV/AIDS (ICW) in Swaziland. What this example illustrates is
that supporting young women as leaders of their own groups and
initiatives requires a lot of investment. This investment includes
funding agencies with a commitment to institutional strengthening
of young women’s groups, from women’s groups that walk the talk in
terms of empowering mentorship arrangements to feminists in the
movement who are able to truly respect young women’s leadership
and be open-minded to ‘co-learn’.
Facilitating movement building for young women in the
region and globally
Another model worth exploring is intermediary women’s organizations
facilitating mobilization and collective action of young women
through movement building. Three examples are presented in Box 1.
BOX 1:
Strengthening and mobilizing younger activists within
the women’s movement requires deliberate strategizing,
dedication to understanding the experiences of young
feminists and a commitment to supporting youth-led
initiatives. AWID’s Young Feminist Activism programme
aims to contribute to a multi-generational movement by
amplifying the voices of young women within the movement
so that their experiences and ideas are reflected in feminist
discourse and activism. 22
Similarly, Just Associates with its Young Women’s Voices
programme of supporting young women’s movement building
also contributes to the growth and strength of the women’s
movement in southern Africa. To date, they have held think
shops and follow-up processes with, for example, young
women living with HIV and AIDS from southern Africa
to reflect on their issues and strategize on how they can
strengthen themselves as a community and constituency in
the region.
OSISA’s Gender and Women’s Rights unit aims to support
young women in southern Africa firstly through a two-week
feminism training course, and – from 2010 – a Young
Women’s Festival aimed at supporting young women in the
region to organize and take collective action.
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Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) – an
illustrative example of working with young women
Perhaps the longest existing example of working with young women is
the YWCA, globally. The organization has been in existence for the
past 150 years, with a theory of change that states that if women are
taught useful skills, provided with shelter when in need or a space to
meet with others for collective action and empowering conversations
this would result in empowerment. Young women are a core
constituency and target of YWCA programme, with young women's
leadership as a core part of the work that YWCA does. For example,
in all of their trainings, summits and international engagements with
spaces such as the Commission on the Status of Women, a day is
specifically set aside for a young women's dialogue. YWCA has also
held a number of inter-generational dialogues around the world,
which have resulted in more meaningful dialogues on succession
planning and the sustainability of the women's movement.
The organization also has a number of publication resources that
support young women's leadership. One such publication is the
Empowering Young Women to Lead Change manual. 23 However,
the main role that YWCA plays is the creation of a safe space
for young women based on the belief that a key pre-requisite for
young women’s empowerment is to help them move from the
private into the public realm. The reflective piece in Box 2 below
illustrates this.
BOX 2:
Sitting under the tree – symbolism: safe spaces for
young women24
Hendrica Okondo, from Kenya, is the Global Manager for sexual and
reproductive health rights and HIV and a focal point for Africa. Here,
she reflects on the importance of having access to safe spaces and talks
about her path to empowerment.
Often young women in rural Africa have nowhere to go except
under trees. This space is a significant and sacred space in Africa, as
it is where our wise men exercise their power. It is also a space that
was forbidden to women and children in my village because the
shade of the trees provided cool resting areas for poisonous snakes,
and only men were allowed to carry the sticks that kill snakes.
In many cultures, women are ignored, controlled and silenced as
a form of consolidating male authority over them. This denial of
young women’s right to self-empowerment is a gross violation of
their human rights. We have a duty and an obligation to provide
young women with safe spaces to exercise their power, their need
for knowledge and to protect the integrity of their bodies.
The space under the tree can be safe or unsafe depending on
who else is there. YWCAs in 28 African countries strive to make
safe spaces by providing accurate information on sexual and
reproductive health and rights and HIV– subjects that are often
forbidden to young women by culture and religion.
The YWCA provides skills and training opportunities for
leadership that enable women to set the agenda at the family,
community, national and global levels. Young women need that
space under the tree, both physically and metaphorically. It is
a place for dialogue and for exploration of the different forms
of empowerment and self-determination. Young women have
healthy expectations. They don't want to die while giving birth,
they don't want to be violated; if born positive they want to live
positively, they want to have access to quality education and
to participate and overcome occupational segregation. Young
women want safe spaces that enable them to exercise their rights
to make informed decisions no matter what the context. In the patriarchal communities that these women live in, systematic
discrimination and exclusion from the decision-making processes
are a way of life. Young women are often denied rights and their
mobility is restricted. While parents, religious leaders and the
community at large mean well, this discrimination stems from the
normalization of patriarchal structures that define women and girls
as inferior and are derived from stereotypes of subservient social
I am happy to work for the YWCA because we strive to make the
space under the tree safe for young women to access information
and services that will help them understand their sexuality and
reduce unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
But, we also need to educate young men to respect women's selfdetermination and to share responsibility with women in matters
of sexuality and health.
Extracted from the December 2010 Common Concern, Issue 145
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roles, like the requirement to greet all men, no matter their age,
on your knees.
The YWCA approach also illustrates key principles of working with
young women that could strengthen the existing young women’s
empowerment models in our region. These are summarised in Box 3.
BOX 3:
YWCA key principles for working with young women
Respect: Have faith in young women’s leadership and their ability
to overcome challenges. Give us the space and support to lead.
•
•
•
•
•
measuring impact;
A more nuanced appreciation of mentorship, models of how
best to do it and better investment by the movement in this
strategy of empowerment;
The thorny issue of inter-generational organizing and the
call for young women to claim the space as part of
their empowerment;
Young women in mixed spaces and the challenges they face or
opportunities to be explored;
Limited investment in holistic young women’s empowerment
programmes and too much of a proliferation of once-off
initiatives; and
Resourcing and sustaining young women’s empowerment.
Consult: Ask young women for solutions to the problems we
face. Ensure that we are involved in making decisions that affect
our lives.
Peer Learning: Young women are most receptive to learning life
skills from other young women. Allow space for young women to
collaborate and learn from each other.
Openness: Be creative and open-minded. Respect and
encourage young women’s creative problem solving.
Experience: Young women learn best by doing. Provide
opportunities for experiential learning. Allow us to take risks and
learn from mistakes.
Fun! Remember to laugh and enjoy yourself. Young women
appreciate the value of a good time, even when hard at work for
social change.
Emerging issues: young women’s empowerment models
The article has endeavoured to provide a critique of existing young
women’s empowerment models through an analysis of the concept
of empowerment itself. The complexities and challenges of this task
highlight the need for more focused discussions in the women’s
movement in southern Africa to then better define and refine the young
women’s empowerment models we utilize. There are a number of issues
arising from this article, which women’s movements need to be thinking
about if the agency of young women is to make a significant impact in
social justice activism in the region. These include:
• The need for focused investment by the movement in
better articulating empowerment models, strategies and
Ennie Chipembere is currently ActionAid’s International
HRBA Programming Advisor. She has worked as ActionAid
International’s Women’s Rights Technical Advisor since 2006
and to date she has worked in 26 AAI countries globally. She
has provided leadership globally on aspects of women’s rights;
in designing programmes, promoted cross learning and capacity
building/mentorship support to team members across countries
and other themes and functions. Ennie has been involved in
institutionalizing women’s rights programming using a Human
Rights and gender analysis lens, most notably in her work with
the Human Security Theme. She is also a champion for women’s
leadership development and is passionate about young women
and men’s empowerment. This is demonstrated by her leadership
development, coaching, mentorship and youth organisations
development work in Swaziland and Zimbabwe since 2005.
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Endnotes
1. Peter Oakley. ‘Evaluating Empowerment – Reviewing the Concept and Practice’,
INTRAC NGO Management and Policy Series No. 13, 2001, p. 13-14
2.Elisheva Sadan. ‘Empowerment and Community Practice’, 2004, p. 76,
downloadable on: http://www.mpow.org/
3.Ibid
4.Ibid
5.Refer to Jane Barry (2007) and Urgent Action Fund’s book entitled What’s the
Point of Revolution if we Can’t Dance.
6. Peter Oakley. ‘Evaluating Empowerment – Reviewing the Concept and Practice’,
INTRAC NGO Management & Policy Series No. 13, 2001, p. 14
7. Alan McWilliams. ‘Towards a Typology of Empowerment’, Working Paper Series,
2003, p. 7, http://eprints.vu.edu.au/149/1/wp12_2003_mcwilliams.pdf
8. Michel Foucault. Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison, 1975, http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault
9. Nina Strandberg. ‘Empowerment of Women as a Transformative Strategy for
Poverty Eradication and the Implications for Measuring Progress’, UN Division for
the Advancement of Women – Expert group meeting, 2001, EGM/POV/2001/EP.6
10. Michel Foucault. The History of Sexuality – The Will to Knowledge, Volume 1,
1976, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault
11. This model is extensively presented in Louise Jennnings et al article entitled
‘Toward a Critical Social Theory of Youth Empowerment’, in the Journal of
Community Practice.
12. MEMPROW Annual Report – 2010, feedback from Akalo Secondary School
Social Survival Skills training
13. http://www.moremiinitiative.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i
d=63&Itemid=64
Community Practice.
15. http://www.ywli.org/leadership-development-program
16. http://www.ywli.org/sexuality-and-masculinities
17. http://www.streetfootballworld.org/network/all-nwm/sedyel/documents/sedyelcase-study/download
Community Practice.
19. ActionAid Myanmar Critical Stories of Change, The Fellowship Programme in
Myanmar – ‘Let’s do it together for our village’, 2009
Community Practice.
21. Posted By Margaret to JASS Blog at 11/24/2010 10:12:00 AM
22. http://yfa.awid.org/about-us/yfa/
23. Available at http://www.worldywca.org/Resources/YWCA-Publications/
Empowering-Young-Women-to-Lead-Change
24. Hendrica Okondo, http://www.worldywca.org/YWCA-News/World-YWCA-andMember-Associations-News/Sitting-Under-the-Tree-Safe-spaces-for-young-women
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Young women matter in realising
an open society
By Tsitsi Mukamba
Imagine a society in which every voice has a say and everyone counts – young, old, women
and men. This is the kind of society philosophers Henri Bergson and Karl Popper imagined
when they developed the concept of an open society. Looking at societies in southern Africa,
even the ones that are believed to have the slightest semblance of ‘open societies’, ensuring
the participation and voice of all citizens is still a challenge. This is more so for the so-called
marginalized social groups, especially women who are treated as perpetual minors. One
wonders what spaces are there for young people, especially young women, in such polarized
societies that make their voices count? This article will critically analyse the significance of
giving space and voice to young women when participating in society generally and in the
women’s movement in particular as a prerequisite to achieving open society ideals.
I
n open societies, governments are responsive and tolerant and political mechanisms are
transparent and flexible. In his book Open Society and its Enemies, Popper alludes to an
‘open society’ as one which ensures that political leaders can be overthrown without the need
for bloodshed, as opposed to a ‘closed society’, in which a bloody revolution or coup d'état
is needed to change the leadership. He further describes an open society as one “in which
individuals are confronted with personal decisions and these are respected”. To further invest
in the promotion of open societies, George Soros founded the Open Society Institute in
1993, with the aim of shaping public policy and promoting democratic governance, human
rights and, economic, legal, and social reform. This article will dwell on the last part of Popper’s
definition of the importance of the ‘personal’ as it argues for the promotion of young women’s
rights as a vital facet towards achieving an open society. This is so because as Chantal Mouffe
claims ‘the personal is political’. The fact that young women’s voices are lacking in sociopolitical discourse and even in the women’s movement has to be analysed in light of the
broader structures that seek to shift the balance of power, turf and influence in any society.
Where are we as young women coming from?
Our working premise is that women, including young women, matter just like any other human
being on earth. From this understanding, the promotion of gender equality was one of the
principles embedded in the foundation of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa
(OSISA) in 1997. The organisation has increasingly taken centre stage in southern Africa in
promoting the rights of women and supporting efforts to build strong and sustainable women’s
movements. In 2006, OSISA commissioned a study to find out why the women’s movement
in southern Africa was getting weaker compared to the vibrancy it had, for example, after the
Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in September 1995.
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Young women matter in realising an open society
One major finding of the research was the fact that young women
were absent from the movements. There were no mechanisms
that ensured human resource replenishment and continuity in the
movements and as a result there was no renewal of energy and
vibrancy. This gap was noted as a problem that threatened the
health of the movement. On the other hand the report revealed that
young women were interested in taking part in movements but most
did not know how to. In response to the findings, OSISA has been
actively promoting the mobilisation of young women in women’s
movements in order for their engagement to be meaningful.
What drives this strategy is the realisation that the involvement of
young women is a key factor in the reinvigoration of the women’s
movements, which in turn, are key to open societies and the
promotion of democracy in the region. Ignoring young women limits
the agency of feminist movements against patriarchal systems.
What stops young women?
The research also revealed that contrary to popular belief young
women are generally not interested in activism and movement
building. Many do not know how and where they can make an impact.
There are also a number of other challenges that often discourage
those who want to get involved.
No space, no voice
Current manifestations of women’s movements in the region have
often been criticised as being largely elitist, spaces where ‘grassroots’,
‘uneducated’ or the unemployed struggle to fit in. This is so because
mobilisation often happens in urban spaces and opportunities for
political consciousness development are limited to such spaces.
The resulting trend is that the elite speak on behalf of all women –
including young women – and this often poses challenges where
some constituencies feel that their issues are not being adequately
voiced by the movements.
The elitist nature of the movements also poses another challenge
in terms of discourse and agenda setting. Young women and those
without formal education often struggle to be part of the agenda
setting because of the language used to frame the issues. I am
posing a challenge to the women’s movements; why not simplify the
language so that the issues are understood by all of us, including
sisters who have received little or no formal education? Speak a
language we can all understand! It is even better if documents are
translated into mother tongues and some seminars are conducted
in the vernacular. It is important to emphasise that the women’s
movement should be broad-based, so that women from all spheres
of life (rural, farming and mining communities included) can draw an
agenda for themselves and contribute to the fight in their own way.
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I believe that rural young women are interested but at the moment
few are making any effort, if at all, to reach out to and stop the vicious
cycle of no education, poverty and early motherhood. As a result the
activist leaders speak for them and on behalf of the vast majority.
There has always been a problem with speaking for others because in
many cases little or no consultation is made before one speaks out.
Instead activists should always seek opportunities to consult, and
better still, to let the women they work with say their stories in their own
words and in their own way. Creative ways of communicating such as
drama, documentaries and digital stories can be used for this purpose.
It is worth noting that language is used as a source of power. So if
someone writes or speaks jargon which is understood by very few, they
own that piece of work and no one enters their space. If as feminists, we
are trying to deconstruct unequal power relations, we must be true to
ourselves and question whether through our writing we are not seeking
to accrue power to ourselves and treat others like outsiders to our
truth and our realities. For example, there is little effort to help the new
entrants into the movement navigate and understand the discourse.
There is also little formal linkage between feminist academic writers
and feminist advocacy practitioners, yet these feed into each other.
Theories should speak to women’s realities and not be something out
there, distanced from everyday life. In the pursuit of truth and research
interpretation should not be shallow. This echoes George Soros’
caution not to overlook the manipulative function of reason, “that we
are pursuing the truth and not simply trying to manipulate people into
believing what we want them to believe.”1
One would assume that it is relatively easy for the educated urban girl
to join in through her agency. It is disappointing to note that this is not
the case. Even after graduating with an honours degree, majoring in
Gender Studies, one may realise that it is not easy to put theory into
practice. When the young woman joins a women’s organisation she is
considered inexperienced to lead initiatives, so she is expected to begin
by pushing paper as she gets ‘mentored’ to be a ‘future’ leader. In many
cases, this mentoring never happens because it is not clearly defined
nor is it understood and it is not systematic. Strategic spaces for
young women’s exposure are often limited. The directors of women’s
organisations are often the ones that attend strategic fora and events
outside the office because they are seasoned feminists with a wealth of
experience. Yet young women have a lot of experience to offer through
their lived and learned circumstances and situations. There is a need
to recognise and appreciate that there are a lot of experiences to be
gained from different generations of women. Since it takes financial
resources and an invitation to attend some of these spaces, organisers
of feminist networking platforms need to take the initiative to include
and invite young women. This is not only for the benefit of the young
women but also for the strengthening of the movements.
The cost of ignoring or speaking for young women
I have heard at several women’s conferences that all women are the
same and their issues are the same since they are fighting the same
disadvantages and segregation. While this is true to some extent it is
also equally true that because of this generalisation young women’s
issues have been pushed to the periphery of the struggle. When they
are brought to the fore, it is often the older generations who speaks
for and on behalf of the young women. Although patriarchal societies
do put all women at a disadvantage, an effective game plan would
be to have different players attacking from different angles. While
older generation activists may talk about inheritance and property
rights, the issue for young women could be access to contraception,
sexual and reproductive rights and the right to a health system that
is responsive to such a need. This issue could be taboo to the older
generation. When the older generation then speaks for everyone, the
truth is seen to be the issues that they raise as opposed to issues raised
by young women, which are treated as secondary and an add-on to
the agenda of the women’s movement. It is also important to note
that young women themselves are not a homogenous group and
their networks should be flexible enough to allow young women of
different races, religions, socio-economic backgrounds and sexual
orientations to express themselves freely and comfortably, an issue
Mazuba Haanyama addresses in this Issue.
Young women can no longer afford to be kept in the back seat and
have others speak on their behalf. The HIV statistics in southern
Africa should break this silence. Young women between 15–24
years have a higher risk of contracting HIV compared to any other
age group or category. Poverty still has a woman’s face, more so a
young woman’s face. For example, access to funding for start-up
businesses are limited for young women because they lack assets for
security. I come back to the opening remarks of this article that in
an open society individuals are confronted with personal decisions
and how they are affected by the larger society. If the women’s
movement has been fighting to put across the message that their
decisions and personal problems should matter to society, young
women should not have to fight for the same recognition and
realisation in the movement itself. The women’s movement should
not be a ‘closed society’ where freedom of expression is rewarded
by labelling. For example, when certain vibrant young women
realised that their power and confidence to advocate for sexual and
reproductive rights came about through talking about respecting
their bodies and their sexuality, older feminists thought the subject
to be taboo and that they should tone down. Male chauvinists were
disgusted by the talk. But what brings vibrancy in a movement is
difference, diversity and freedom to appreciate that the struggle
has got to be fought from different positions without gatekeepers
screening what the relevant issues are.
While violence against women in general continues to persist as one
of the most common, systematic and prevalent human rights abuses
in the world, sexual abuse and violence occurs more commonly to
young women. The situation is worse in southern African countries
where unemployment, lower education levels and poverty provide
multi-tier challenges for young women. Women’s issues particularly
in crisis countries such as Swaziland and those in transition such as
Zimbabwe, DRC and Angola are often pushed to the periphery
of policymaking as governments prioritise peace-building and
economic recovery. All these factors contribute to the higher risk and
vulnerability of young women.
Response to the challenge
A few institutions have woken up to the reality that ignoring young
women puts a dent on agency in women’s movements. Organisations
such as OSISA, YWCA, AWID, JASS, AAI, Akina Mama,
AWOMI, to mention a few, have realised that it is not easy to get
space and exposure for young women, yet their involvement is vital
to reinvigorating the women’s movements and, to this extent, they
are targeting young women as a way of building the movement.
For example, OSISA embarked on the Young Women’s Voices
Campaign in 2009 with the aim of building the leadership of young
women and mentoring them. This campaign also seeks to give voice
to young women so that their issues can be at the core of the women’s
movement, as well as governments and policymakers’ agendas. The
campaign has a number of initiatives including:
1.
An annual Feminist Leadership Training Course for young and
upcoming women’s rights activists. The course introduces
young activists to the tenets of feminism and provides a broad
understanding of the main areas of study within this field and links
it with how women’s rights advocates can utilise such knowledge in
formulating, recommending and critiquing public policies;
2.
A regional online newsletter entitled Pepeta News. The newsletter
is an exclusive space for young women to share their experiences
and ideas. Pepeta News also posts blogs thereby cultivating an
environment for debate, dialogue and interaction and, posting
information on the opportunities that arise for young women. The
newsletter is compiled and circulated by a young women’s
organisation whose coordinator attended the first Feminism
Course in 2009 and is committed to facilitate regional networking
among young women through writing;
3.
Publishing of two issues each year of BUWA!, which critically
analyses feminist discourses in key development issues. This
issue of BUWA! seeks to amplify young women-specific issues
that are often lost in broader agendas of women’s movements;
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Young women matter in realising an open society
4.
Supporting young women to participate at local, regional and
international platforms to give them exposure to current global
thinking and debates, challenges, tools, strategies and
methodologies that others are using in harnessing the power
of movements to defend and promote women’s rights and social
justice. OSISA has supported young women from southern
Africa to participate at the Tanzania Gender Networking
Festival in 2009 and the XV111 International AIDS Conference
in 2010;
5.
Drawing lessons from these and other platforms the young
women saw the need to organise a platform that will specifically
speak to young women’s issues. In October 2010, the young
women’s network in Zimbabwe organised and hosted the
inaugural southern African Young Women’ Festival. In addition
to sharing experiences and ideas, the young women received
training in critical fields such as digital storytelling, blogging,
using the Internet, lobbying, advocacy and organisational
development. The festival created a momentum and wave of
excitement in the young women. OSISA hopes that the young
women will be inspired to maintain this momentum so that when
they meet for the next festival they will be talking about the
changes their efforts are bringing about;
6.
All these activities culminated in the launch of the 16 Days of
Activism, Global Campaign for Young Women. OSISA
supported activities in all of the 10 countries in southern Africa
where it operates by working with young women’s organisations
and formations. It was inspiring to learn of the innovative ideas
and potential young women’s organisations have that is waiting
to be nurtured. The young women marched, danced,
participated in sport and debated as a way to wave their flags
and show that they are willing to break the silence
around violence.
OSISA continues to invite young women, young women’s
organisations and formations to join the campaign and start taking the
initiative in promoting the rights of young women in their countries.
It’s got to be a movement bigger than ourselves
There have been several critiques of the development and fanning of
young energy in the movement. Some have challenged that strong
activists do not wait to be excited and incited by others before they
take action. The argument continues that young women just have to
get out there and do it. While this works, it is not a sustainable model
of succession and it is one of the reasons why young women have
been invisible in women’s movements. Others have also complained
that resources are now being channelled to young women’s initiatives
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ignoring the pioneers of the movement. I think this is an unfair
complaint because the reason why we are where we are today is
because the limited resources ploughed into women’s rights work
have not adequately trickled down to grooming and mentoring young
women to take leadership positions. To keep a fire burning, there has
to be constant supply of wood and oxygen. Young women are the
wood and the oxygen that will keep the fire in the movement burning
for generations to come. There is a lot that women’s movements have
achieved over the years and it is reasonable to protect these gains.
Promoting a cadre of young women activists can only help to defend
these gains by renewing the energy and keeping the movement
relevant to the realities of women today.
It is one women’s movement
Southern African women identified a gap in the women’s movement
and their efforts have been an endeavour to supply a new breath of
air to an ailing system. This new energy and new breath of air have
got to revitalise the whole movement and not be contained in a
balloon. If this happens, the balloon will soon burst. The promotion
of young leadership is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end.
The new leadership has got to resonate with the system if it is
going to make an impact. This article encourages multigenerational
feminists and activists to dialogue, work together and be tolerant.
For example, young women can invite older women to attend their
vagina monologues and the older generation should be open-minded
enough to at least attend, and if they can, to at least participate.
There is rich and deep knowledge in women that one can tap into if
they cultivate a culture of learning. If we are serious about bridging
the gap, there has to be a point where efforts meet, converge and
come together. This is bearing in mind that being a young woman is
a passage in motion. So, the same young women should not start all
over again when they become the older generation.
Drawing Synergies and Efforts
The young women who have been empowered and given the
platform should seek to reproduce themselves by training others
and implementing what they learn. Young women’s organisations
in Zimbabwe such as Katswe! Sisterhood, Zimbabwe Young
Women Network for Peace Building, Institute for Young Women
Development and others have realised the power in working together
as a network and not in silos. Changing circumstances around
oneself can positively impact the women’s movement in becoming
more broad-based and diverse. This is also a challenge to older
generation activists to endeavour to support young women who are
able to advocate and lobby for the promotion of women’s rights.
Young feminists need to get exposure and experience for them to be
effective and successful feminist leaders.
The funding for women’s work has dwindled over the decades due to
changing funding priorities and exacerbated by the 2008-2010 global
economic slump. Even more scarce is funding for young women’s
activism. Funders are afraid to take a risk in supporting unknown
formations with no track records. However, this article encourages
funders and donors to invest in young women’s initiatives. Great
ideas ultimately need to be funded to drive change and sometimes
where there is no risk there is no gain. For every project implemented,
stakeholders need to begin to think of how it can reproduce, to
live and make and impact beyond today. That way the women’s
movements will be relevant and sustainable, putting women’s issues
on the agendas of governments and policymakers as they ought to be.
Conclusion
The women’s movement has been fighting for decades for open
societies to treat women as equal human beings. Many women
leaders speak out to condemn dictatorship and tyranny in Africa. This
is commendable and these same values also need to be channelled
into women’s movements to allow for difference and tolerance
of contrasting ideas and modes of engaging in the struggle, lest
the movements themselves become closed ‘societies’. Women’s
movements have not been doing a good job of reproducing
themselves because of the lack of conscious and deliberate efforts to
grow and nurture young leadership. It is too costly to ignore young
women any longer. Generations of women should work together;
speak from different locations but with the same aim to create a
society that respects freedom and celebration of self.
Tsitsi Mukamba received tertiary education in
Sociology and Social Anthropology from the
University of Zimbabwe. She is passionate about
the development of leadership in young women
across southern Africa. She currently works as a
Programme Assistant at OSISA.
Endnote
1. George Soros , 2010; The Soros Lectures at the Central European
University 1st Edition, Public Affairs, Philadelphia
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Movement-building challenges for young women in southern Africa
Movement-building challenges for
young women in southern Africa
By Shamillah Wilson
Women’s movements in all parts of the
world are currently engaged in addressing
issues of power. In southern Africa, women’s
movements have been through several shifts
in recent decades, including participating
in liberation struggles; engaging with
states to hold post ‘flag-democracy’ states
accountable to ideals of ‘gender equality’;
interacting with the North and engaging in
diverse initiatives concerned with women’s
human rights; and engaging with local and
continental struggles to understand the
links between sexualities, gender, and socioeconomic space – all of which are vigorous,
nuanced, and valuable.1
C
urrently though, in the region, of great concern is the dwindling
vibrancy of the women’s movements both nationally and
regionally – a situation which has been correctly attributed to a range
of factors, including a diminishing resource base, limited capacity and
ability to effectively mobilise and organise around new challenges
such as HIV and AIDS, among other issues. Other key challenges
for women’s movement building include the ‘NGO-ization’ of
movements, which has resulted in sectoral, erratic and often scattered
engagement of feminist voices in the public domain. The ongoing
assaults on women’s bodies, lives and activism has in many ways also
burnt out many activists, groups and in some cases initiatives. 2
One startling reason is an obvious and apparent lack of connection
between many initiatives and the participation of poor grassroots
and young women in organising actions for transformation. The
challenge for women’s groups is to ensure the revival of movements
that are visible, strong and diverse enough to result in concrete and
sustainable change.
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It is important to note though that since before the Beijing
Conference in 1995, feminist movements across the globe have
increasingly made efforts to include young women in a range of
spaces and initiatives. At the same time, young women themselves
have started their own initiatives and organised themselves. 3 These
efforts have sometimes been effective and at other times have simply
remained on the margins of broader social movements. Over the last
15 years though, the discourse around young feminist activism has
also shifted from merely trying to involve young women because of
their youth, to engaging them because they have something unique
to offer in terms of their analysis and strategies. Importantly, there
are also many more young women who come to activism through
the universities and educational institutions signalling a very different
entry point from previous generations. In southern Africa, increasingly
as grassroots women have started mobilising around key issues related
to their basic needs such as HIV and violence, women’s movements
themselves have indicated that there is a need for broad-based
movements that effectively engage and work with young and other
marginalised groups of women.4
Why broad-based movements?
Our moment in time is defined by increasing gaps between the
world’s wealthy and its poor –and the impact that has on societies
in terms of accessing basic human needs, let alone rights.5 It is no
secret that globally, women of every generation are now experiencing
increasing levels of violence, corruption, discrimination, terrorism,
war, poverty, sexism, impacts of new technologies, threats of
environmental degradation, etc. The current global situation can
either be an opportunity for or threat to young women, especially
those with fewer choices, as these challenges determine their
opportunities and their ability to claim their basic human rights.
In southern Africa, despite increased opportunities, young women
have still not managed to free themselves from discriminatory norms
and practices entrenched through tradition, customs, religion and
culture. At the same time, it is important to point out that issues such
as location, class, citizenship, race, education, HIV status, age and
sexuality all result in women experiencing power differently. Whilst the
struggles of previous generations have resulted in more opportunities
and benefits for this generation of young women, there is also the
need to consciously seek innovative strategies to ensure access
(rights) to the benefits and gains (education, opportunities, etc) for
those who lack formal education, do not have the communication
technologies, and are engaged with the day-to-day struggles of
survival. For all this to happen, there is need for clear strategies for
broad-based movements that allow space and participation by diverse
groups of women in the struggle for
equality and equity.
The level of engagement of young women in movements says a lot
about the movement's longevity, reach, health and sustainability.
Within southern Africa, at the different national levels, there are
different initiatives attempting to engage young women, bringing
them into the fold of activism and organising, from a feminist
ideological frame. At the regional level, there are issue specific
networks that young women connect to, but not necessarily a young
feminist initiative that connects young feminists across the region.
The Open Society Initiative for Southern African’s (OSISA) Young
Women Voices initiative, still in its infancy, could grow to be a much
needed regional initiative. Otherwise, efforts to nurture young
feminist activism still leave a lot to be desired, as in many cases they
are piecemeal and lack the backing of key groups within national
movements – possibly due to other competing agendas.
The arguments for scaling-up efforts to engage young women in
women’s movements include the fact that young women are (once
capacitated and supported) best placed to give voice, visibility and
organisation to issues confronting young women. In addition, the
participation of women and girls of all ages is critical to the future
of the women’s movements and the fight for social justice. The
involvement of young women is certainly a key strategy to expand
movements and to energise them both for the present as well as for
the future. That said – it does present particular challenges for multigenerational organising and collaboration.
Young women and movement building: the challenges
Which young women?
Young women are by no means a homogenous grouping within
society and this in itself is a huge challenge for movement building.
As noted by Mudaliar and Malek, ‘young women’s identity’ has been
critical for building a supportive community among young activists, at
the same time it has alienated women of other generations, as well as
led to a glossing over of very real difference among young women. 6
The reality is that on the one hand, we have a group of young
women (mostly urban) who have been through some form of higher
education and who, when they get into feminist spaces, are in most
cases open to exploring and engaging in movement building. Added
to this is the fact that some of those young women who are privileged
enough to move across the global and regional stage of engagement
with women’s movements have the challenging task of transcending
boundaries (whether it is national/regional, north/south). Connecting
these engagements to the national context is important, yet many
of these young women struggle to find space to do so. On the other
hand, the reality of many young women who lack this higher and
formal education is very different. They struggle more than their
educated counterparts to find space in feminist movements. They
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rights and bodily integrity
often do not have access to
are some of the key issues
communication technologies and
Often young women who openly identify
that young women struggle
tools and are engaged with the
to reconcile with their
day-to-day struggles of survival.
with feminism also become targets
faith. Often young women
The reality is that women’s
of ostracisation and marginalisation
who openly identify with
movements have generally
feminism also become
struggled to effectively organise
and sometimes even violence.
targets of ostracisation
women (let alone young women!)
and marginalisation and
from impoverished contexts, due
sometimes even violence. All
to a lack of resources and often a
of these need to be taken into account in strategies to engage young
lack of foresight as to how sustained political education and
women as the need for belonging and social connections should not
mobilisation could ultimately result in some of the power shifts
be underestimated.
sought. This is a critical area for young women who join movements
to tackle and a key task will be to ensure that feminist political
Power sharing and multi-generational tensions
education and mobilisation is accessible and appealing and results in
strategies that are led by women in these contexts.
The call for multi-generational organisations and movements
Feminist or not?
now seems to be quite dated, as illustrated in Nyaradzai
Gumbodzvanda’s article, elsewhere in this Issue. Yet, whilst a
Women’s movements have increasingly recognised that in order
basic tenet of feminism is to deconstruct power and propose
to transform power and to eradicate all forms of discrimination and
alternative paradigms for power sharing, in reality – within feminist
oppression, feminism should be pursued – as an ideology and social
movements – the engagement with issues of power and with
strategy that is capable of achieving this. However, we are living
redefining participatory engagement leaves a lot to be desired.
in a time when feminism continues to evoke strong responses and
The women’s movement in southern African is no different from
even a backlash, and for many young women misconceptions about
its sister movements in other regions. Issues of rural, lesbian,
feminism mean that they would not openly identify with a feminist
transgender, HIV positive, disabled, young women, etc. continue to
movement. Some young women feel that by labelling their activism as cause confusion and often conflicts. The fact that social movements
feminist they marginalise certain groups in their community who may
often mirror the complex relationships of power that they seek to
not label themselves feminists and thus sideline these people from
transform does nothing to alleviate the divisions and damage caused
becoming leaders and/or advocates in their community. Other young
by how different identities are included or excluded. Hence, the
women openly choose the identity as they feel that it is a way to start
continued appeal for the feminist movement to honestly and boldly
subverting the restrictions and impositions of socialisation on women.7 tackling issues of power and leadership within the movement itself.
The challenge for movement building for young women is that there
need to be opportunities for young women to define what their
feminism means to them at this particular point in time. On another
level, as they seek to take action and build alliances of solidarity, it
should allow them to collaborate with other young women who are
willing to buy into their political agenda but who for various reasons
may not choose to call themselves feminist. Whilst the emphasis
should be to build political solidarity, it is imperative to create
spaces for young women to enter into the movement based on their
exposure of how the ideology and social change strategy actually
impacts on the lives of women.
The impact of conservative agendas, especially through evangelical
Christian fundamentalism in southern Africa, is a further challenge.
Many young women, who identify with a particular religion, often
find conflicts in identifying with feminism. Issues such as women’s
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We have heard the voices of different generations of feminists talking
about the “generation gap within the women’s movement, and a
marked absence of younger women in leadership positions”. 8 Many
feminists have eloquently argued that the feminist movement needs
to become truly multi-generational. Alpizar and Wilson argue that
it is important for the movement(s) to encourage young women’s
participation in order to:
(i) allow the movement(s) to reinvent itself;
(ii) ensure consistency with the principles and values of feminism
– and as we are challenging power and privilege – it is important
that we also do so amongst ourselves; and
(iii)build strength and sustainability.9
A committed engagement with these issues will provide the
foundation for developing intra-generational solidarity and power.
It is also important to point out that a multi-generational movement
includes a role for the ‘doyennes’ of the women’s movement, who still
have a key role to play in mentoring and ensuring that institutional
memory is effectively transferred. Also, open debates need to happen
about changing roles and the lifecycle of activism, which I think we
have never really had within the movement.
Our movements certainly need this injection of new energies and
ways of working. Whilst recognising the wisdom of those who
had been involved for longer, it is important to acknowledge the
‘experiences’ of this generation of feminism, which can also add to
our pot of wisdom in the movement. Over the last decade, in many
spaces globally and in the region, the inter-generational dialogues
have been a strategic entry point for starting this process. In southern
Africa, though, there is possibly room to have more of these at the
national level and also sub-regional level. However, it should not stop
there as movements are really good at talking and dialoguing, yet,
they are not good at translating these talks into real meaning and
action. One way could possibly be to define some forms of indicators
that could guide and assess how the movement is doing in this area,
and to have regular updates and reflections on how to get better at
multi-generational forums.
New forms of activism
Another challenge is that young women who come into activism
enter through the NGO system and many of them become boxedin by the strategies and methods of mobilising and organising
within these contexts. Inherently, because of their relative freshness
in the area of activism, the focus should not only be on getting
young women to understand the issues but to enable them to come
up with different ways of ‘doing activism’. For instance, the fact
that young women are part of an era where almost every young
person has access to a cell phone, provides a great opportunity
for younger feminists to take what has already been done and
initiated by previous generations of feminists and build on it with
their understanding of the issues, with their possibilities and their
resources for creating change.10 Alpizar and Wilson add to this
analysis by saying that “by using a more flexible definition of activism
and exploring new ways of engagement, younger generations can
help create the creativity and momentum to move forward.”11 For
women’s movements this is an opportunity to effectively engage the
types of energies and possible innovations that young people can
bring to shift power.
At the other end of the spectrum, there is a need to guard against
such actions and initiatives being labelled as ‘youth focused
initiatives’ and not being integrated into broader strategies and
agendas. It is important to be mindful of this, as many of the
initiatives led by young feminists have not always enjoyed the
participation and the backing of other generations so young
feminists have often experienced a sense of marginalisation of their
issues and their activism.
Opportunities for young women and movement building
There are many opportunities for movement building involving
young women, including increasing access to technology (e.g.
cell phones) and social networks and increasing awareness and
engagement around feminism among young women within the subregion. The fact that there are increasing initiatives geared towards
increasing these numbers is a definite opportunity that needs to
be leveraged. One of the key learnings from institutions has been
that more and more young women are attending feminist political
education initiatives. Yet, the challenge is to build on these so that
they do not remain once-off events but that it builds a community
of activists that continue engaging, being nurtured and mentored
to ultimately take collective action.12 That is the true indicator of
effective movement building.
One of the key strategies available to connect young women is to
leverage technology so that it creates a platform to connect, provide
support for and facilitate ongoing dialogue between young women
activists. This would fulfil the purpose of linking young feminist
activists in different countries and also sharing information and
strategies specific to the region. Setting this up is not a cumbersome
or costly task, as the range of open-source software allows and
facilitates such platforms. In addition, the existence of groups such as
the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Africa and
Women’s Net also ensure that there is a means for young women to
gain support for this. However, the biggest challenge is often keeping
something like this going since it would depend on the energies and
commitment of young women to drive it so that it ultimately results
in a pulse that could become vibrant with young feminist voices and
actions. For this, young women could define how they want to do
it but also request the necessary support and mentorship from the
range of institutions in the sub-region.
This would also allow young feminists within southern Africa to
profile their efforts, experiences and analysis and ensure that this
addresses the current gap in voices from the sub-region. Similarly,
this could also be a means for young feminists to come up with and
design alternative strategies and forms of activism and increase
the critical mass of young women activists from all levels of society.
Young women would also be able to – through such initiatives – work
closely with institutions to engage in ongoing dialogue around multigenerational forums, facilitation of mentoring as well as to monitor the
effectiveness of such initiatives.
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Conclusion
Movement-building as a discourse is in some ways a relatively new
approach to push women’s movements to connect the importance of
mobilising important constituencies with a clear political agenda and
working with these constituencies to choose targets, strategies and
actions that would bring about social justice.13 The case for movement
building with young women has already been made and what is
needed is proactive coordinated action by a range of key actors as
well as young women themselves. This cannot be a passing phase
but needs a concerted, dedicated approach that integrates it into the
core strategies and agendas of women’s movements. It will require
both the resources and energies necessary to ensure that over a
dedicated period of time, the movement reflects the demographics of
the actual society in which it is organising. This will ultimately enable
the collective (young and old) to co-create new ways of risk-taking to
tackle the ever-changing face of patriarchy confronting us.
Shamillah Wilson is a South African feminist
engaged in various movement-building efforts,
including those with young feminists in Africa.
Endnotes
1. Bennett, J (2009). Challenges Were
Many: The One in Nine Campaign, South
Africa. Association for Women’s Rights in
Development
2. Mtati, Sipho (2008). HIV Movements
in Africa: Losses and Opportunities.
Presentation at the Feminist Movement
Building and Leadership Institute, Entebbe,
October 2008.
3. Aplizar and Wilson (2005).
4. JASS 2009. Reflections on women’s
organising in Malawi and Zambia.
Unpublished report prepared for Cross
Regional Dialogue.
5. Essof, S. 2005 “She-murenga: Challenges,
Opportunities and Setbacks of the Women’s
Movement in Zimbabwe,” Feminist Africa 4
6. Malek G (2010). How is young feminist
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activism helping our movements grow. Blog.
http://yfa.awid.org/2010/06/how-is-youngfeminist-activism-helping-our-movementsgrow/
7. Malek G and Mudaliar S (2009). Young
feminist activism and intergenerational
relationship building. Association for
Women’s Rights in Development.
8. Wilson S (2004). Transformative
leadership the ‘now’ and ‘future’ of the
movement. Profile interview with Nyambura
Ngugu, Youmna Chlala, Anasuya Sengupta.
In Agenda no. 60, 2004.
9. Sunila Abeysekera, Women in Action:
Social Movements, Feminist Movements
and the State: A Regional Perspective,
2004,isiswomen.organisation/pub/wia/wia204/sunila.htm.
10. AWID Spotlight, 2005: Making
Waves: How young women can (and are)
transforming organisations and movements
11. Andrea Medina Rosas and Shamillah
Wilson, 2003, The women’s movement in the
era of globalisation: does it face extinction?
In Gender and Development, Women
Reinventing Globalization, Vlum 11, Number
1, May 2003, Oxfam, UK
12. Lydia Alpizar and Shamillah Wilson
(2005), page 2.
13. Akina Mama wa Afrika (2010). Review of
the African Women’s Leadership Institutes.
Unpublished report.
14. Batliwala (2008) Building Feminist
Movements and Organizations: Clarifying
our Concepts. Association for Women’s
Rights in Development.
Socio-economic rights for young
women in southern Africa
By Tendai Makanza
Numerous global and regional developments have put women’s rights at the centre of
policy debates, formulation and implementation. Yet despite noble strides in the drafting
and ratification of several relevant protocols and conventions (such as the United Nations
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),
the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, the
SADC Protocol on Gender and Development), women – especially young women – in
southern Africa remain unfairly disadvantaged and marginalised. Often governments
and institutions are very quick to tick the checklist by signing and ratifying international
instruments and putting policies and laws in place that promote social justice for women
but seldom do they match this with the necessary implementation strategies and budgetary
allocations that actually translate the signatures into real transformation in women’s lives
(Chakanya and Makanza 2009:2).
W
hilst socio-economic policy
frameworks in the region have
undergone several transformations,
they have remained consistent in one
key element – they are largely derisory
in the promotion of gender equality,
equity and the empowerment of women.
The ratification of these commendable
instruments has not yet addressed the
challenges of young women in southern
Africa since this process is largely removed
from the inherent socio-economic policy
framework, which is fundamentally
premised on the blindsightedness of
gender neutrality and exacerbated by poor
implementation and financing. Regrettably,
this has undermined young women’s
beneficiation of social, economic, political
and cultural rights (Chingunta, 2002:10).
Socio-economic rights in this context
are defined to include (but not limited
to) the right to sustainable livelihoods,
participation in decision-making machinery
and access to healthcare and education.
Although gender inequality is not unique to
southern Africa, the devastating effects of
neo-liberal policies, poverty, discrimination
and lack of opportunities negatively affects
young southern African women in multiple
ways – from their economic standing
(income levels, rights to own property,
access to finance) to their social well-being
(access to health services and education) to
their prospects for better living conditions
(heavy household work burdens, ability to
secure employment or be self-employed). Of
course it would be ignorant not to acknowledge
that gender inequality existed way before the
implementation of neo-liberalism. Nonetheless,
neo-liberalism has exacerbated the gender
inequality challenges. Using a feminist political
economy approach, this paper will show how
State socio-economic policies and strategies
for integration into the regional and global
economy have been affected young women’s
economic participation and their beneficiation
of social rights.
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Socio-economic rights for young women in southern Africa
Impact of neo-liberalism on young
women’s employment and
livelihoods creation
The ‘rise’ of capitalism in southern African
countries as the mainstream economic
system notably through Structural
Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), Poverty
Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs),
regional integration and trade liberalisation
has resulted in severe costs of adjustment.
Whilst there is a lot of disagreement about
the overall benefits of capitalism/neoliberalism and whether the consequent
adjustment costs are short-term or long
term, there is a resounding consensus
that economic reforms and policies in the
past two decades have created a heavier
burden on women. Women in southern
Africa remain severely marginalised
from mainstream economic engagement
(McGow 1995, ANSA 2007). Whereas
some may argue that national economic
strategic policy formulation processes have
become more consultative, non-state actors
have very little influence in shaping the
final developmental policies and strategies.
Consultations largely revolve around social
policy and the economic package still keeps
non-state actors ‘out’.
Many authors increasingly agree with the
sentiment that “we can no longer assume,
(as feminist economists once did), that
capitalist globalisation can ‘empower’
women, through increased industrial
employment providing them with a
ticket to ‘modernization’ and economic
independence” (Federici 2004). There is
mounting evidence documenting the strife
of young women working in deplorable
working conditions, the rising number of
women working in the informal economy,
the feminisation of poverty and eroded
social protection. Data today shows that
over the past two decades, poverty amongst
female-headed households and young
women has been significantly higher under
SAPs and PRSPs than before (McGrow
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FIGURE 1:
An Atypical Enclave and Dual Economy of Southern Africa
Formal Sector
Informal Economy
• <20% of total labour force
male dominated
• Geared towards
continuous accumulation
• Sector tends to be influenced by external/ imported technology
& techniques of production
• Consists of capitalists and
wage workers
•
•
•
Female dominated
Low productivity, wages &
poor working conditions
Absence of developed value
chains & missing linkages to
the formal sector & the
external economy
Communal Sector
• Developmental policies
• Monetary & Fiscal policies
• Wage & Employment policies
• External & Internal policies
•
•
•
Female dominated
No dynamic growth
& accumulation
Subsistence &effectively
subsidised wages from
the formal economy
Source: Adapted from the ANSA Book (2007)
and Mkandawire shows that in southern
Africa, employment opportunities for youth
were very marginal, with South Africa’s
youth unemployment estimated to be
more than 70 percent, whilst in Zambia,
only 25 percent of people aged 15-25
years are employed in the formal economy
and 73.8 percent are ‘doing nothing’. The
study also shows young women as being
the more disadvantaged group in terms
of employment opportunities. Figure 1
illustrates an atypical enclave and dual
economy of southern African economy from
an engendered perspective.
It is estimated that more than 70 percent
of the population in southern Africa lives
and draws its livelihood from the informal
1995, ANSA 2006, Chakanya and Makanza
2009). Neo-liberalism had become a secular
religious doctrine for the officials of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
World Bank and the G7 (George and Sabelli
1994). Consequently, its actual empirical
success or failure had become irrelevant,
even though millions of people are suffering.
Women the world over have been
marginalised from the formal sectors of
the economy and the young women of
southern Africa are no exception. Women
dominate the ‘periphery’ economic stratums
(the informal and communal economies),
which are not adequately supported nor
recognised in the policy spheres. A survey
conducted in 2001 by Chigunta, Kambewa
Addressing women’s
challenges cannot be
left to the capitalist
market. It calls
for an alternative
development framework
that needs government
intervention.
economy and the communal sector and
are female dominated. Yet these sectors
are under resourced and marginalised
from mainstream socio-economic policy
frameworks. Much of the employment
creation opportunities for young women
that resulted from the liberalisation of
trade occurred in light manufacturing
industries and export processing zones (EPZs). For example,
Mauritius’ EPZs increased women’s labour participation rate from
18 percent in 1962, to over 42 percent by the end of 1988. Between
1984 and 1992, Mauritian EPZs were employing over 90,000
workers of whom 63,400 were women. These export-oriented
economic activities have resulted in the ‘feminisation of labour’, as
young female workers were deemed to be cheaper as well as more
obedient, flexible and unorganised.
Although women found significant employment in some of the
EPZs, their jobs tended to be low-skill jobs with poor salaries and
benefits, highly casual and with no employment securities. For
instance, in Zimbabwe, 90 percent of the women employed in EPZs
are casual or temporary workers. These jobs do not allow women to
work themselves out of poverty. Instead, they become part of the
‘working poor’ – people in full-time employment but unable to meet
their basic needs (Makwavarara and Nyamukapa 2007).
Another interesting example is from South Africa where women
accounted for more than half of the jobs in the fruit industry (after
the horticultural boom in response to trade liberalisation), yet
they represented only 27 percent of the permanent labour force in
this sector. Regionally, young women are deemed to be ‘flexible
labour’. Labour legislation is largely written to protect permanent
employees, with very weak protection for temporary and casual
employees. And while economic policies undermine the economic
rights of women, the legal framework remains inadequate to
protect them.
The recent global financial crisis, which turned into a ‘full scale’
global economic crisis, will surely turn into an employment crisis
in the immediate future, particularly in labour-intensive export
firms that are mobile and dominated by female workers. Declining
growth, combined with pre-existing levels of state fragility and
household poverty will leave many vulnerable and exposed to the
food, fuel and financial shocks. Fiscal and monetary policies in
southern Africa (pre- and post-crisis) are founded on conventional
economic trends that currently have no regard for non-market work,
the care economy, subsistence production and above all the unpaid
work performed mostly by young women. The formal economy in
southern Africa is just not growing (fast) enough to fully absorb
the young women who are already
disadvantaged in terms of seeking active
and decent employment.
For the majority of women that have not
been absorbed into the formal economy,
the alternative has been to create
self-employment. Yet, there are several
challenges that confront young women in the region when
they decide to set up self-owned enterprises; relative to the
men, women start smaller businesses, are less likely to employ
hired workers, grow more slowly (if at all), are less likely to borrow
from a bank, are more likely to access personal networks for advice
and support, and tend to dominate the lower growth sectors
of the economy. Among the list of priority barriers to women’s
entrepreneurship in all countries is the lack of access to credit,
formal business networks, opportunities to gain management
experience and exposure as well as the limitations of combining
household and family care responsibilities with those of running
an enterprise. Table 1 presents practical recommendations for
promoting women-owned enterprises (WOEs) access to finance.
It is increasingly acknowledged that investing in women
will effectively contribute to human-centred development.
In this regard, it is very commendable that more and more
governments (globally) are creating an enabling environment
for investing in women – with more than 50 countries globally
having introduced gender-sensitive budgeting and many
abolishing laws that prohibited women’s access to land, property
ownership, credit and markets, and promoting the decent
job agenda (ANSA 2006, UNDP 2008). But there is still so
much that needs to be done. Addressing women’s challenges
cannot be left to the capitalist market. It calls for an alternative
development framework that needs government intervention – a
framework that is holistic and practical.
An alternative development framework/strategy therefore calls for
an enabling environment, not just one that focuses on the business
environment, but one that also reviews and rethinks the social,
micro and macroeconomic frameworks that fight against gender
equality, (ANSA, 2006). In other words, a comprehensive strategy
would aim at redressing gender imbalances such as: political
participation of women; access to and ownership of productive
and reproductive assets by women; women’s participation in
decision making processes and structures; and, building the
capacities and capabilities of women that improve their social and
economic rights. In this regard, it is generally appreciated that
women can be empowered and enjoy basic socio-economic and
political rights through sustainable livelihoods.
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TABLE 1:
Action Agenda for Improving Access to Finance by Women-SMEs based on Good Practices: Demand Perspective
DEMAND SIDE
GOVERNMENT
PRIVATE
SECTOR
CSO
NGOs
Improving access
to existing sources of finance
Developing targeted
financing tools for women
entrepreneurs
Addressing structural and
cultural barriers
•Introduction of simplified
registration system for micro and
small enterprise
• Legal reform for women’s property
ownership
• Introduce refinancing for FIs having
specialised products for women-SMEs
• Introduce e-financing for reduction
of transaction costs (sunk costs), credit
guarantee schemes, credit rating
system for Women-SMEs and
incorporation of women-SME
category in credit bureau database
• Introduce financial incentive schemes
for SMEs through a ranking system for
sound business record keeping
•Introduce special Women SME
Development fund
•Introduce to specialised equity
financing for women-SMEs
(Venture Capital Funds:
Women growth equity fund,
USA, Bangladesh)
•Promote private sector
venture capital
•Develop secured financing
based on movable assets
•Introduce specialised
financial institutions
•Enhance coverage of
collateral with inclusion of
agricultural land
•Introduce specialised training
on financial management for
women-owners
•Support network of women SMEs within country and
across geographic boundaries
•Develop exit mechanisms
for reducing non-performing
assets (NPAs) and enhance
resources to SMEs financing
•Introduce credit+ approach including
home-based mentoring and counselling
•Reduce documentation and
procedural complexities in
SME-financing
•Develop secured financing
based on movable assets
•Introduce bank syndication
system between MFIs and
commercial banks. MFIs will
provide credit history of micro
borrowers to banks for graduation
•Improve access to
information related to
tailored financial products
through various channels
including home-based
counselling
•Initiate institutional networks
through public-private partnership
for sharing good practices among
the SMEs and seeking financial
opportunities
N/A
N/A
•Assist improving access to information
related to access to financing through
ICT channels
•Assist in developing legal framework
for issuance of securitised assets.
•Introduce Special Small
Enterprise Fund for providing
equity financing of SMEs to PFI
window at discounted rate
•Introduce sustained capacity
building programme for
•Breaking mind-set barriers
Source: Adapted from the Handbook on Women-owned SMEs: Challenges and Opportunities in Policies and Programmes
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Opportunities and challenges for young women under
trade liberalisation
Trade liberalisation has been at the heart of all trade negotiation around
bilateral trade agreements (e.g. Economic Partnership Agreements),
regional integration processes and the World Trade Organisation
(WTO). While trade carries with it several opportunities for young
women, such as the creation of wage employment, increased incomes
and improved consumption thresholds, unfortunately, it has tended
to focus solely on getting the economic fundamentals right, such as
achieving a well-balanced terms of trade (TOT), increasing productive
efficiencies and stimulating exports and foreign direct investment – this
is so removed from practically providing sustainable livelihoods, income
and poverty eradication. Trade agreements are largely gender neutral
with several parallel and detached processes that call for mainstreaming
gender – that largely go unheeded.
Impact of neo-liberalism and the beneficiation of social
rights by young women
Macro-economic policies affect existing distributive, allocative
and institutional structures and, as such, have poverty and social
outcomes. The transformation of the role of the state from provider to
regulator in the social sector (through privatisation) was expected to
lower costs, increase efficiency, improve quality and increase access,
yet the main result has been the commodification of essential basic
social utilities and services, with disastrous results for the beneficiation
of these services to young women. Caffentzis (2002:90) argues
that “an ideal neoliberal program would transfer almost all social
decision making onto individual ‘consumers’ with a variety of ‘budget
constraints’ competing on the market for a variety of products and
services open to all bidders.” The commodification of social basic
services greatly undermines young women’s access to and control of
these fundamental development resources. Neoliberal policies are the
ones that apply the basic assumption of neoliberal theory to the social
realm. A typical example of such policies are the user-fee clauses of
World Bank economic reform programmes that require governments
to charge fees for the use of health care, education and water services
to the southern African citizenry.
Neo-liberalism and access to basic healthcare
Under SAPs and the poverty reduction and growth facility (PRGF),
the privatisation of healthcare provision has led to increased user-fees
and poor access by poverty stricken populations in southern Africa.
For example, during the implementation of the Economic Structural
Adjustment Programme (ESAP) in Zimbabwe, the IMF required that
Zimbabwe reduce non-interest expenditures by 46 percent. Though
the government never met this incredible target, healthcare spending
under ESAP fell from 6.4 percent in 1990 to 4.3 percent of the budget
in 1996. It is reported that during this same period, user-fees in some
instances rose by more than 1000 percent! Where would young,
unemployed women get such resources to access health?
Many southern African countries have failed to meet the health targets
agreed upon within the United Nation’s Alma Ata Declaration on
Health, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to health
and the Abuja targets for ensuring universal health for all. Fewer than
five countries in sub-Saharan African have met their Abuja target of
committing 15 percent of their fiscal budget to health (USAID, 2010).
Additionally, a study carried out by the World Bank (2009) showed that
the global economic crisis would have a significant negative impact on
access to basic healthcare and that infant mortality rates would be much
higher for girls than for boys. A one or more unit fall in GDP increases the
current average infant mortality rate of 7.4 deaths for 1,000 births for girls
and 1.5 deaths for 1,000 births for boys. This expected increase in child
mortality is likely to place added burdens on women, given their roles as
child-bearers and caregivers. Progress (or rather the lack of it) in maternal
health in sub-Saharan Africa remains largely unchanged. Sub-Saharan
African women have a 1:16 ratio of the risk of dying of pregnancy related
complications compared to 1:32 in other developing countries. Poor
maternal health is linked to gender inequalities in a number of socioeconomic and decision-making arenas, reflecting the low status of women
(particularly young women who form the majority of the population of
women of child-bearing age) and the girl-child in society.
The neo-liberal health model has worsened the plight of young
women in southern Africa who are also the group most vulnerable
to HIV and AIDS. A study conducted by UNAIDS in the year 2000
showed that in all SADC countries, young women (aged between 1545) were more vulnerable to HIV and AIDS compared to young men.
Impact of neo-liberalism on provision and access to quality
and affordable education
Southern African countries have undertaken several initiatives
including MDG-related programmes, the SADC Protocol on
Education and various national development initiatives to promote
access to primary education for both girls and boys. An analysis of
statistics over the past decade shows impressive increases in literacy
rates and enrolment rates of the girl-child. However, empirical
evidence shows that inequitable access and drop out rates remain
very high. For example, in Mozambique, a child from the poorest
20 percent of families has on average 1.9 years of primary education
compared with five years for a child born into the richest 20 percent
of households (Eilor 2009). Although great strides have been made in
promoting access to universal education for the girl-child in southern
Africa, significant gaps exist in terms of supporting young women to
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access tertiary and vocational education. There is still a lack of political
will to realise these commitments. The resources being allocated to
education are insufficient and do not match the current rhetoric of
southern African leaders to prioritise education.
Conclusion
Given these numerous social challenges, temporary safety nets will
not address the woes of young women in southern Africa. There is a
need for an aggressive pro-poor public policy and resource framework,
reforms in the distribution and allocative systems that are (gender)
equity based. The state should take on a more developmental role and
not leave the social sector to the markets. patriarchal systems.
Tendai Makanza is Research and Information
Coordinator, ANSA Programme, Harare.
References
ANSA (2007): Alternatives to neo-liberalism in Southern Africa
Chakanya N & Makanza T, (2009): Women and the economy in
developing countries; An evidence-based approach
Chigunta Francis, 2002: The Socio-Economic Situation of Youth in
Africa: Problems, Prospects and Options
George Caffentzis, 2002: ‘Neo-liberalism in Africa, Apocalyptic
Failures and Business as Usual Practices: Alternatives’, Turkish Journal
of International Relations Vol. 1 No.3
George, Susan and Fabrizio Sabelli, 1994. Faith and Credit: The
World Bank's Secular Empire. London: Penguin.
International Labour Office (ILO), African Development Bank
(AfDB) and Private Sector Department (OPSD), (2004): Supporting
growth-oriented women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, Kenya & Tanzania
International Labour Office (ILO), Geneva, (2008): ILO strategy on
promoting women’s entrepreneurship development
International Organisation for Knowledge. Economy & Enterprise
Development (IKED) and Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP),
2007: Handbook on Women-owned SMEs: Challenges and
Opportunities in Policies and Programmes
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United Nations Development Programme, (Zimbabwe), (2008):
‘Comprehensive Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe: A Discussion
Document’.
McGow, Lisa, (1995): The ignored cost of adjustment: Women
under SAPs in Africa
Nyamukapa D & Makwavarara T, (2007): Gender Issues in Southern
Africa, ANSA Book
Eilor A. Elizabeth (2009): Commission on the Status of Women,
Fifty-third session: Emerging issues-The gender perspectives of the
financial crisis
UNAIDS and Economic Commission for Africa. (2000): Aids in
Africa. Country by country.
UNAIDS, Geneva.
USAID (2010): Africa’s health in 2010: Impact of Global Economic
Crisis on Health in Africa
World Bank Internal Policy Note, (2009): Decelerating Growth:
WEO Projections and World Bank staff estimates. Mortality and
Schooling: The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Progress towards
the Millennium Development Goals in Human Development.
The plight of rural women
in Namibia:
Lessons for the region
By Florence Khaxas
I thought that I’d had a hard life as a
young woman until I met and talked with
women living in rural parts of Namibia’s
Erongo region. Their daily struggle for
survival kills all imagination and leaves
no dreams for the future.
T
NAMIBIA
hey said: “Hopelessly, we stare into the harsh dry
land that refuses to nourish any spirituality nor
any economic development. Our spirit has deserted
us, leaving no energy, no enthusiasm to put our heads
together to make plans even for today…Frustrated, we
curse our government for doing so little, for paying lip
service to our needs. There is no equality of opportunities
for those of us living in rural areas. We need so much and
get so little…We need development skills, farming skills,
craft skills, small businesses so we can generate our own
income – to become independent. We know so little
about women’s rights; culture dominates here. Women’s
rights do not mean much in a rural setting. But still – there
is hope for the future!”
These were their sentiments – shared with me when I
visited rural Namibia, as part of the outreach work of the
Young Feminist Movement. I visited several villages to
have discussions with women (young and old) on their
rights and the problems they are experiencing in their
communities. I captured their stories, as they told them.
41
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The plight of rural women in Namibia: Lessons for the region
I spoke with Karekwe, the local nurse:
SPITZKOPPE
SPITZKOPPE
Spitzkoppe is a small village in Erongo, whose
name comes from the famous mountain that
is one of the ‘must see’ sites in Namibia. As a
tourist destination, it looks so promising, yet
women in this community face a bleak future.
There is a small clinic in Spitzkoppe that isn’t
properly equipped – sometimes there is no
medicine. People live in poverty. There are
odd jobs, but these are mostly for the young
men in the village. They work as small-scale
miners of semi-precious stones, which they
sell to tourists. Some young men are also
employed as tour guides. Money comes in
fast for the men and this is very attractive for
some young women in this community. As
such, young men often have many girlfriends
– there is no need to outline the health
hazards that come from such a set-up.
As work for women is scarce, cohabitating is
a huge problem in this village. Young women,
who dropped out of school, start relationships
at very young ages with men of all ages.
Young women have little autonomy over
their bodies and over their lives, and are not
informed about their rights. Alcohol abuse is
also a huge problem here. I had an intergenerational discussion with a group of 17
women from this village to learn about their
lives. I also spoke to a local nurse, a struggling
gemstone and crafts vendor, and a 19 yearold girl who had a seven month-old baby.
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Florence: As a nurse, what are the challenges you face working here?
Karekwe: It’s not at all easy… Most of the time I work alone. It gets unsafe when people
wake me up at late hours with knife wounds, and I don’t have the necessary equipment
to help them.
Florence: Knife wounds? So you mean people get into fights?
Karekwe: These young boys get themselves drunk. They sleep around with schoolgirls.
When their girlfriends question them, they get into fights, beating up the women so badly
that I have difficulty doing my job as a nurse.
Florence: So, violence against women is a big issue in this village?
Karekwe: I have been woken up with many emergencies in the early morning hours. I treat
women with broken jaws, badly bruised on their heads, arms broken, and stabbed. Once
I tried to call the ambulance from the town that is about 50 km away. But there was no
telephone network. So I decided that we had to hitch hike.
Florence: Were you able to get a lift?
Karekwe: No. It was a weekday, so there were no cars. We waited for 16 hours before we
could get a lift to the hospital.
My conversation with Fransisca, (a craft maker and a gemstone seller) was also
not encouraging:
Florence: Where do you get the semi-precious stones that you are selling?
Fransisca: My boyfriend mines them at the small Spitzkoppe mountain, as well as at the
Brandberg mountain.
Florence: So what is it like working as a vendor in this village?
Fransisca: Tourists are not always interested in our stones, especially when the
competition is so high. Everybody here is selling stones. And the tourists are not always
around, you know. Some months are better than others. The money that I make is very
little. I face a lot of problems with my boyfriend.
Florence: What sort of problems?
Fransisca: Sometimes I do not even get to see the money. He takes it all and finishes it on
alcohol and other women. Then we argue about it and he hits me. It hurts that he wastes
hard-earned money on booze while we have children to feed. I don’t care somuch about
the beating, but his alcoholism is the main problem.
Florence: But is that behaviour of his acceptable here?
Fransisca: My dear, men beat women, they do that when we (women) anger them. It’s
just because of alcohol. A lot of women get beaten up around here. We don’t even have
a police station. To report our boyfriend is of no use. The town is far, and if we call them,
they don’t find domestic problems big enough for them to drive all the way here to our
village to help us.
Similarly, Meide, a 19 year-old single mother of two, experiences no joy living here:
Florence: Did you go to school here?
Meide: I went to school till grade 10 in the town. But I failed. So I didn’t continue. My
mother didn’t have money; she has five children. My father is a pensioner as well. Our
livestock is just over 50 goats, so there is not much happening for my family.
Florence: When did you become a mother?
Meide: I got my first child when I was still in school. But I went back to school.
Florence: And the father?
Meide: They have two different fathers, but both are unemployed so they don’t pay
maintenance. My firstborn is with his father’s mother at a farm nearby.
Florence: You mentioned you are also unemployed. How do you cope being a single mother?
Meide: I am not coping at all. Life is hard here. If I had a choice I would not keep them.
But even contraceptives are difficult to get around here. Condoms are not a guarantee.
Negotiating with men is just like asking to be hit.
Florence: Are no contraceptives offered here at the clinic?
Meide: I’m not sure. A friend of mine went to ask a nurse to give her the pill. The nurse was
so cruel to her, calling her promiscuous and a loose woman, saying that she is too young for
sex. It’s not nice to be humiliated like that, you know.
For me it was not easy to listen to what my
sisters go through every day. The sense
of hopelessness touched me so much.
How I wish change could come quicker for
them. The amazing thing is that I saw so
many smiles and we all had more laughter
than tears. Laughter not only heals our
pain but also gives us hope and strength
to face another day. Laughter transforms
our challenges into steps we can take to
overcome all obstacles. Laughter helps us to
face our fears and hardships with courage!
in today’s life you have to do whatever it takes.
UIS
UIS
Uis is a small town in the Erongo region. It
used to flourish back in the 70s when it was
a tin-mining town. But as the years went by,
the demand for tin gradually faded away.
Women in general, and young women in
particular, in this community face so many
challenges – unemployment being the
biggest. I spoke to local women to get their
perspective on the situation.
Selvina, 45 years old, and a former tin miner opened her heart to me:
Florence: How has your life changed since the time when you were a tin miner?
Selvina: Those were the good old days with less hardship. Life was good back then. I
could take care of myself, and I was not depending on men for financial security. I could
take care of my children and even see that my extended family was well taken care of.
Florence: How do you take care of yourself now?
Selvina: My dear, in today’s life you have to do whatever it takes. I married an older man.
He is a pensioner, 78 year old. We have a couple of goats back at the farm – that is a bit
of security for the ‘drought’ days. But, I have a lot of responsibilities. He is old so I have to
take care of him, manage our livestock, and the children as well. The N$500 that he gets
as a pension is very little. I try to dig some tin here and there, but the value has dropped.
Besides, digging has such a bad effect on my health now.
Florence: How is your health these days?
Selvina: I have breathing problems. It is very dusty in the mines. You can ask anyone. A
lot of people who worked as tin miners here have some sort of breathing problems. I have
asthma. And I have back problems from all the years of digging under the sun. But what
can we do ... we need money. There are no jobs here. Tin was our life and bread.
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The plight of rural women in Namibia: Lessons for the region
After my talk with Selvina, I met Maero. She was sitting near a local shop. She asked me for
N$2.50 to buy a cigarette. I bought her a cigarette and ended up sitting besides her for a
casual chat. Maero is 24 and unemployed
Florence: You look sad – with your hands upon your head as if you are carrying the
whole world on your head.
Maero: Ag, it’s nothing, ousiro (little sister). Just a terrible hangover – that’s all.
All we doaround here is drink beer, nothing much is happening.
Florence: Are you employed?
Maero: No, I don’t have a job. There are no jobs here. For me going to the town
is of no use. I didn’t finish school. Yesterday was the payday for the old people. I
take care of my grandparents, so I manage their monthly pension money.
Florence: How do you manage it?
Maero: I buy them the basic food they need, buy some electricity and pay the
bills they have at the local store. The rest is mine for keeps.
Florence: But you just asked me to buy you a cigarette?
Maero: I have three children and an unemployed boyfriend as well. He gets
very violent with me so I give him most of the money I have left from my
grandparents’ monthly pension. I pay a portion of it for the kids’ school. And I
drink as well.
It’s not just the young women who struggle, even older women’s lives in this
community leave a lot to be desired. I spoke with Ouma (grandmother) Hentrica,
77 years old. Hentrica is a pensioner raising three of her grandchildren.
Florence: Ouma, how come you are looking af ter these children? Where are
their parents?
Ouma: My child, that’s what we old people do in rural areas. We care for
our grandchildren. Their parents can’t take care of them; they are both HIV
positive and struggling as it is. I want to spare these children the burden. At
least with me, I see to it there is flour to bake fat cookies (round bread made
from dough that is deep fried).
Florence: What is it like raising these kids as a single old woman?
Ouma: I’m widowed. My husband died a couple of years back. Two of these
children are HIV positive and that is the hardest part for me. It gets very
expensive as they have special needs. They need vitamins and proper food to
keep them going. So I bake fat cookies for school children and I sell some sweets
as well. It helps, although I don’t make a lot of money.
Florence: And their medical needs? Do you get the necessary medical help at
the clinic?
Ouma: No, I don’t. I mostly have to travel to bigger towns to get pills.
Florence: You are a strong woman. You still look so young for your age. What’s
your secret?
Ouma: (laughs) A lot of people say that, my child. I am always busy, running
after the kids. I used to live at the farm, but all my livestock were stolen and I saw
no reason to continue living there. That’s how I found myself living at the old
people’s home here.It was tough at the farm, especially with the sick children.
With no cars or donkey carts around, travelling to Uis in cases of emergency was
a serious problem.
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We care for our
grandchildren. Their
parents can’t take care
of them; they are both HIV
positive and struggling as
it is. I want to spare these
children the burden.
Young and old, all women face a lot of challenges. Women in rural
communities are caregivers. They take care of their old parents.
They take care of their husbands. They take care of their children
and grandchildren. Most of them don’t even have enough to take
care of their own needs. Women risk their health in order to put
bread on the table. They work under the burning sun without
sunscreen or a hat. With no employment opportunities, poverty is
taking a dramatic toll. Other women I spoke to told me that they
need skills. They need courses to come to rural communities to give
them the necessary skills in farming, craft work, for them to become
self-sustaining and able to care for themselves and their family.
They said they need more feminist fora. They want to learn more
about their rights and their bodies. “We want to be empowered!
We don’t want to be constantly reminded of our challenges. Yes,
we are rural women, but we are strong and still smiling. We need
encouragement and motivation as young women for us to have a
vision, to have dreams.” Those were some of the words from the
rural women.
Conclusion
Women generally, and young women in particular, face a lot of
challenges in all spheres of life, regardless of where they live.
Women in rural and farming communities experience additional
challenges because of the specific locations in which they live.
Therefore, it is essential that the needs and wants of women
and young women in rural communities be recognised. I would
like to believe that this is not unique to the few villages I visited
in Namibia, but typical of rural and mining communities across
Namibia and also across the whole of southern Africa. As
women’s rights defenders, we have a lot of work to do before we
bridge the gap of unequal access to women’s rights in our region.
As young feminists, we are taking long overdue baby steps to
make the plight of young women in rural communities visible and
working to develop strategies to transform these sad stories into
tales of hope.
Florence Khaxas is a feminist activist, writer and poet. She is the coordinator of the Young Feminists Movement
in Erongo Region, Namibia. She is also an upcoming entrepreneur, working to establish a museum to preserve
the history of her ancestors in a black township, Mondesa, where she lives and works.
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Young women in marginalised communities of southern Africa: The forgotten lot
Young women in
marginalised communities
of southern Africa:
The forgotten lot
By Glanis Changachirere
In many instances, people want to evade the truth for fear of
offending those involved and so the facts remain untold. However,
more often than not, they realise that their silence has done more
harm than if they had spoken. This is especially true of the situation
of young women in marginalised communities, including farming,
mining and rural communities. Some – and these are many – are
afraid to tell their stories, and as such they continue to languish in
poverty. Others hide behind the cliché that all young women can
rise above adversity. The truth of the matter is – it matters where
you are born. And your economic status and ultimately how people
perceive you depends a great deal on where on earth your home is.
And thus, around the globe, we find vast life discrepancies closely
linked to geography and economic injustice. More so, these
differences in socio-economic status are more pronounced
when you are a woman and when you are young and
living in geographical localities of farming, mining
and rural communities.
A
number of social, economic and
political realities in southern Africa
have worked to confine women in general and
young women in particular to the unfortunate
situation that they find themselves in. I will try
in this article to examine some of these harsh
realities and proffer in my own thinking, how
these can be addressed.
The elite nature of the women’s
movement
The women’s movement is a key vehicle in
the fight for the realisation of women’s rights.
However, in our countries, this movement
has assumed an elite form that has privileged
the urban woman more than those in
marginalised geo-localities. As is the norm,
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the young women in these marginalised
communities are the most affected. The
reasons why women’s movements have been
struggling in our region is because they are
not broad-based and have not adequately
reached out and sought representation
from women in rural and other marginalised
communities. This elitist nature of the
women’s movements is evidenced by the fact
that demographically, these marginalised
areas have a larger population of young
women and women in general compared to
urban areas. Thus, just like any elite system,
it is the few that benefit on behalf of the
masses because of their elitist nature. Even
where women’s movements have successfully
lobbied for inclusion in policy dialogue,
this have often been gravely misdirected
and inadequate as it has not taken into
account the lived realities of the young
women in marginalised communities. Such
systematic discrimination of young women
in marginalised communities has made their
situation more deplorable, as they are not
recognised and subsequently left out by the
very vehicle that is supposed to champion
their inclusion and fight for their rights.
Limited access to education
In the words of iconic former South African
president Nelson Mandela, ‘education is
the most powerful weapon in the fight for
development’. However, the reality in most
of our region is that education has continued
to be evasive for young women, both pre-
and post-independence because of the exorbitant fees required
by most schools. Many parents in rural communities sacrifice the
girl-child’s education on the basis that she will eventually get married
and leave the family and so they focus on educating the boy-child.
The 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Status Report on
Zimbabwe noted that although there is gender parity in primary level
education, there are lower completion rates by girls at secondary level
and upwards.
While education is regarded as vital in fighting poverty, it is not seen
as fundamental in the development of the girl-child among the
marginalised populace. The girl-child is seen as an economic tool in
the sense that she can easily be married-off (or rather traded-off)
for economic advantages to older men in society, who are regarded
as economically advantageous to the family. As a result young girls
are forced into early marriages – as young as 12 – and many times
into polygamous marriages with men who are old enough to be their
fathers. Some parents and even the girls themselves argue that their
religion allows them to be married at any age as long as they are
marrying their God-chosen suitors. However, the law according to the
Marriages Act in Zimbabwe sets the minimum age of marriage at 18.
Thus these marriages are unlawful.
The sad reality for the few young women that manage to access
education is that the quality of education in these marginalised environs
is lower than in urban centres. In Zimbabwe, due to the unprecedented
brain drain, an entire school may have unqualified or under-qualified
teachers. Furthermore, the infrastructure at these rural schools is substandard and some science labs do not even have a single beaker for
the most simple science experiment. To compound the already dire
situation, the young scholars are forced to walk very long distances to
and from school. Eventually, many drop out of school and for those who
do finish, their competitiveness and results are impacted.
Limited access to employment opportunities
In their 1989 book on the feminisation of poverty, Drèze and Sen
explain the intra-household inequalities in terms of opportunities of
getting outside work and paid employment and the perception of
who is contributing how much to the joint prosperity of the family.
Combined with the perception of the greater investment value of
boys in comparison to girls, these factors led to a situation of extreme
vulnerability for the girl-child and young women. The intra-household
inequalities and boy-child preference in African societies were linked
to the perception that boys and young men contribute more to the
household economy and that boys can be counted on to provide
security for their parents in old-age security, while the money
invested in the girl-child is perceived to go to waste upon marriage
as she leaves the family. These economic calculations, coupled with
gender concepts regarding the importance of marriage for women,
led to many families under-investing in girls relative to boys. To date
such perceptions are more profound in the marginalised environs as
compared to urban centres due to the residual nature of patriarchal
beliefs in the marginalised environs.
The situation described above, and obvious lack of access to education
coupled with less investment towards educating the girl-child has
meant that young women are generally less competitive in the
employment market. And when they are employed, they are paid less
compared to their male counterparts. The scenario is more amplified
in rural communities compared to urban communities, where there is
a semblance of parity between males and females, though this is not
geographically uniform. Rural and other marginalised environs have
also remained generally underdeveloped as there is an unhealthy
concentration of industry and business (key employers) in the urban
centres, which in turn fuels rural-urban migration. While many countries
in the region, notably Zimbabwe, have tried to reverse rural-urban
migration through the promotion of industrialisation at rural centres
(known as growth-points) this has done little to ensure that there is
uniform development in rural and urban areas.
The economics of empowerment: Lack of access to, control
and ownership of critical resources
In the development practitioner’s world, empowerment is generally
believed to be an attitudinal, structural and cultural process whereby
an individual or group gains the ability, authority and agency to
make decisions and implement change in their own lives and, the
lives of other people (Wikipedia). However, at a more practical level,
empowerment has more to do with economic independence – as it is
a type of independence that really empowers an individual to be able
to make and implement decisions that best suits them.
Empowerment in the economic sense has everything to do with the
access to, and ownership of, critical resources for production, chief
among them being access to, and ownership of, land. For the young
women in rural and other marginalised areas, land is the principal
resource for production. The plight of the present generation of
young women vis-à-vis ownership of critical resources such as land
is only perpetuated by the historical realities that have over time
forbidden women from owning land in most of the region. This is
despite the fact that it is the same women who provide the bulk of the
labour in the localised subsistence farming production chain. They
do most of the work, from preparing the farming land right through
to harvesting. However, their contribution ends at harvesting as it is
usually the husband or the naturalised male owner of the land who
usually assumes responsibility for marketing any surplus produce and
ultimately coming to control any liquid cash that comes out of the
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sweat and toil of the women, young women included (Afshar, H. &
Dennis, C. (Eds.). 1992). This is the stark reality that young women
face in many of the rural set-ups where subsistence farming is the
main livelihood.
For the girl child in marginalised communities, economic
empowerment is something that they may only get to hear about
at political rallies and may even live their full lives without ever
getting to experience it firsthand. One of the key drivers of the
economic disempowerment of young women lies in skewed economic
empowerment policies, which have been promulgated by those that
have held power in the past and continue to do so.
A very apt example in the Zimbabwean context is the fast track land
reform exercise that was spearheaded by the government beginning
in 2000. While the land reform exercise was generally meant to
empower the indigenous majority through providing land, the modus
operandi in the allocation of the land left a lot to be desired. It is no
secret that violence took centre-stage as people, the majority of them
old men in the mould of former liberation war fighters or energetic
male youth militias, led the process. Naturally, due to the violent
nature of the reform exercise, it is no wonder that very few, if any
women, could gather enough courage to fight for the land in a manner
that their male counterparts did and so – just as nature would have
it – it became a question of ‘survival of the fittest’ and so, due to their
biological make-up alone, young women were automatically left out
of the empowerment matrix.
While Zimbabwe had enjoyed relative prosperity on the economic
front since independence in 1980, the situation took a drastic
downward turn at the start of the new millennium. The last ten or so
years since 2000 have seen the country witness an unprecedented
economic decline that saw the economy being characterised by
world-record inflation rates, shortage of basic commodities and a
general liquidity crunch that was fuelled by wanton printing of a
worthless currency by the central bank. This economic meltdown,
which saw the country’s economy nearing total collapse, was only
halted at the consummation of the inclusive government in February
2009 and was dependent on the liberalisation of the economy and
a shift to the use of multiple currencies in place of the Zimbabwean
dollar, which had become almost worthless. While macro-economic
planning and policies have improved since then to a certain extent,
such policies have not tried to address some of the most pertinent
issues affecting young women and the majority of the citizens, chief
among them being the issue of poverty.
While the authorities have looked at overhauling macro-economic
policies, aiming to boost industrial production, very little if any
emphasis has been put on poverty reduction strategies, especially
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as they affect rural and other marginalised communities, including
those in mining and former farming areas. Furthermore, these
macro-economic policies have not been tailored to mainstream the
participation of extremely marginalised social groups such as young
women. The policies have tended to be more capitalistic, with an
emphasis on those that already own the means of production and very
little attention being paid to those who do not control any production
means and have no access to any form of credit. Subsequently, such
policies have negatively impacted the poor. This is well exemplified
by a case study of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZMMC),
which was cited in Body Politics and Women Citizens by Sida
Studies (2009). The ZMMC, which is involved in most of the mining
operations in Zambia, was privatised by the Zambian government
in 1997 resulting in the laying-off of many people. And because of
lack of employment many of them were compelled to engage in
illegal activities at mining dumpsites. However, it was the women and
children who took the risk and conducted the illegal activities because
the men said that women and children are less likely to be prosecuted.
Thus, even if the macro-economy improves, the poor and
marginalised young women are likely to maintain their present
situation as no deliberate policies for poverty reduction at the
micro-level have been put in place to ensure that, for example, the
poor have access to micro-credit to ensure that their liquidity level
is improved (2003 Poverty Assessment Study Survey, Summary
Report, Zimbabwe). As a result even if production in industries
improves, these can only be consumed by those that have access to
liquid cash, and marginalised communities continue to be left out,
further widening the already wide gender gap between poor young
women and those who control the means of production.
Closely related to the formulation of macro-economic policies is the
national budgeting process, which is a crucial process for any country.
Whether it is at a central government level or at local government
level, the participation of young women in the process is of paramount
importance. Budgeting at a local government level would be more
practical for the marginalised young women in these geo-localities – if
only such processes could incorporate the voices and aspirations of
these marginalised groups. However, participation is not just about
making up the numbers with young women who attend a budgetary
consultative meeting. It has more to do with translating gender
commitments into budgetary commitments that eventually see the
national budgets transforming the lives of young women in rural,
farming and mining communities. All governments bear an obligation
to utilise sources of revenue at their disposal for human development
and hence should ensure that the national budgeting process is a
people’s process that does not only focus on fiscal policy but also
considers a clear gender framework within the poverty reduction
strategies provided for by the national budget (Zimbabwe Women’s
Resource Centre and Network, 2009). More often than not, budget
allocations for various ministries have not been influenced at all by
grassroots communities.
Cycle of poverty and inequality
The cycle of poverty and inequality has not only become feminised
but is also significantly more entrenched in rural, mining and farming
communities. Poverty in these marginalised environs is driven
by numerous factors – chief among them is the lack of access to
education and resources for production. As explained before, such
factors are more acute for young women than their male counterparts.
This has led to the concept of the feminisation of poverty. This
concept, which initially emerged in the United States after an analysis
of poverty trends among female-headed households (FHH), has
also found its way into sub-Saharan Africa. FHH, particularly those
led by young women in rural areas, have been found to be acutely
impoverished with the poverty marker being categorised as chronic
poverty, which has been transmitted generationally from mother to
daughter. The current statics in Zimbabwe indicate that the poverty
prevalence rate among FHH increased between 2000 and 2008 to 68
percent (2010 MDGs Status Report, Zimbabwe).
The irony of it all is more than exemplified in the fact that rural and
farming communities are the bedrocks of agricultural production,
itself driven chiefly by women and young women, yet it is in these
areas where there are higher incidences of poverty and malnutrition
among FHH. In the Zimbabwean example, the situation is not any
better for young working women in farming communities. They have
also ceased receiving payment for their labour since the invasion of
the former commercial farms by war veterans beginning in 2000.
Their labour is still needed by the new farm-owners but it is no longer
rewarded and some of the farmers regard the young women’s labour
as ‘payment for rent’ for staying in ‘their’ compound. With such a
reality it is despicable to even start talking about the health hazards
that some crops like tobacco pose to the young women as they come
into contact with the crop during the various stages of harvesting and
packaging of the crop. Since these women do not have any income,
they cannot easily access health care facilities, as they are required to
produce some form of cash up front. It is in these marginalised areas
that young women have hardly any access to sanitary wear and also
where maternal mortality rates are highest, as the cost of maternal
health is well out of their reach.
Deliberate political exclusion: The militaristic culture of
politics and the centralisation of governance structures
The militaristic nature of political power that is prevalent the world over
has often dictated that political power can only be achieved through
a certain degree of force, which is contrary to the naturalised female
psyche. Women have been forced to play second fiddle to men in
the political arena as a result of notions that male politicians have built
over time whereby politics is regarded as being ‘not for the fainthearted’. Furthermore, most countries in the region have developed
highly centralised political systems that have disempowered the local
government structures, which makes it almost impossible for those
(especially young women) in these geo-localities to participate in policy
formulation and to influence developmental processes.
The political culture in most of southern Africa and indeed across the
African continent is premised on violence. In the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC), for example, rape is a common tool used during
political contestations. In Zimbabwe, no election since 1980 has been
held free of violence. This only worsened after 2000 with each election
being defined by a death toll – when the only crime committed by those
with died was that they dared to participate in a process whereby they
freely chose those they wanted to govern them. Such a scenario has
meant that young women have become perpetually afraid to participate
in politics, to the extent that very few young women have been brave
enough to contest and stand for political or public office for fear that
they would not be able to match the militarism that can be unleashed by
their male counterparts. The result has been leadership structures and
decisions that are devoid of the feminine voice and perspective. Thus,
instead of participating in the mainstream governance process, young
women have become perennially marginalised with little room to add
their voice to the overall governance processes on which everyday life is
ultimately premised.
To rub salt into the wound, even where young women have braved
the violent political terrain to run for political or public office, this has
usually been at the behest of male counterparts who have come to
view the participation of women in the mainstream governance process
as just a game of balancing the numbers, just a way of living up to the
expectations of regional and international statutes that women should
also be in leadership positions. As a direct result of their economic
marginalisation, young women candidates often find it difficult to fund
their own campaigns, a situation that has forced young women out of
the political arena. Those that ultimately find their way into the arena,
albeit without any funding of their own, often find that their level of
independence is very limited as they have to follow the whims and
caprices of those that funded their ascendency to power.
Decisive factor: Limited access to information
While many of the negatives described above are not unique to
young women in rural, farming and marginalised communities, the
geographical orientation of such young women also puts them at even
greater risk of discrimination and marginalisation, premised entirely
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on their geo-location. While the young woman in Harare’s highdensity suburb of Glen View can browse the headlines of the main
daily newspapers as she passes through the local shopping centre,
the same cannot be said about the young woman at Foothills farm
outside Bindura. Firstly, there is no shopping centre to talk about and,
secondly, no newspaper will ever reach her sight even in the lucky
event that she may be able to read. Such is the nature and extent of
marginalisation faced by young women in such areas. The mainstream
media are almost totally shut out from such communities. Even
television reception is so poor that very few people own television
sets. Those that have tried to bridge this gap through the installation
of cheap satellite decoders have faced the full wrath of political
contestations, as they have become targets for political persecution.
The result of this information blackout becomes apparent in the fact
that very few young women are up to date with current affairs in their
country. Political persecution has also hindered their keenness to know
about current affairs and this in turn has led to apathy towards civic
and political processes, with the ultimate effect that they do not easily
participate in the overall governance process.
Many a time, geographical orientation also dictates the pace at which
newer technologies cascade down to grassroots communities. Whilst
a number of young women are now able to access gadgets for mobile
communication, they have not been able to take full advantage of
such connectivity, to connect with the outside world in accessing
information and also getting information to the outside world. While
Internet connectivity has greatly improved in Zimbabwe since the
introduction of mobile Internet technology with the consummation
of the inclusive government, marginalised populations have not been
able to take advantage of this boon and have remained shut out
from the World Wide Web, resulting in being shut out from crucial
information on what is happening. The other day I asked a fellow
sister at Chireka communal lands, about 30km outside Bindura, if
she knew what was happening in Egypt (in reference to the mass
demonstrations) or what had happened in Tunisia, and it did not come
as a surprise to me when she innocently responded that she did not
know where Egypt was or what was happening there. Such is the stark
reality of young women from these marginalised areas.
Remedying the situation: Recommendations to improve
the situation of marginalised young women
While the problems and challenges bedevilling young women
have been shown to be multi-faceted, the panacea for some of
these challenges lie in very simple techniques, which if employed
with the full participation of the young women themselves can
go a long way in rectifying the unfortunate situation that has
seen young women being regarded as second-class citizens in
comparison to their male counterparts.
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Employing the rights-based approach to development
One key strategy that can be employed is the use of the rightsbased approach in development, especially as it targets hitherto
marginalised communities. Such an approach should specifically
be premised on the equal participation of young women in the
formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the
policies that seek to address their plight. Such an approach has
advantages in delivering real development to those that are most in
need of it. It increases the relevance of any intervention that may seek
to address the plight of young women. Incorporating young women’s
perspectives of development and taking into cognizance their
knowledge and experience, makes it easier to reach any target that
can be set, with their overall participation and input.
Peer-based efforts for meaningful inclusion and
participation
Another point is that it is the young women themselves that know how
to reach out to their peers. Therefore, if consulted and incorporated,
they have the best knowledge of what strategies, methods, arenas
and approaches for development can be used to effectively
address their plight. This increases the efficiency of development
initiatives. Furthermore, when young women get to exercise their
right to participate, influence and power development efforts, then
such efforts gain greater legitimacy and with it greater success.
Any developmental goals and actions gain acceptance among the
intended beneficiaries when they are included in the formulation
and ultimately in implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the
activities for development. Facilitating the effective participation
of young women in development initiatives – from identifying
present gaps, right through to the formulation and implementation
of policies that seek to address such gaps – is a sure way of building
and strengthening the culture of democracy and human rights.
Strong civic participation with the genuine inclusion of young
people, particularly marginalised young women, is a pre-requisite for
democratic development and the building of strong, healthy, open
and democratic societies.
A broad-based women’s movement
The women’s movement is key to putting women’s rights on the national,
regional and international agenda and ultimately influencing policy at
all levels, hence the need to be an all inclusive movement representative
of all women’s interests. There is a need to facilitate and ensure that
young women from marginalised communities are accorded an equal
opportunity to participate in the women’s movement and contribute
towards building a robust movement that makes all women proud to be
women regardless of their age and geographical orientation.
Women’s organisations need not see each other as competitors
but rather collaborate to build synergies and strengthen the
movement’s work. Funding partners are called upon to not only
support big and well established organisations but also to provide
support for grassroots based initiatives as they can more easily
reach out to marginalised young women and women in their
various geo-localities. This is strategic in ensuring the meaningful
participation of young women from marginalised communities in
the creation of sustainable movements, which incorporate these
young women’s issues amongst other women’s issues in general.
The spill over effects of such participation enhance young
women’s ability to participate in mainstream governance
processes so that they also add their voices to the manner in
which governments go about their work. This critically starts
with electoral processes, whereby young women should be
given an opportunity to freely participate in the processes, as
candidates or simply as voters. In this regard, there is a need to
ensure that electoral processes are free of the militaristic and
violent nature that has hitherto dissuaded a lot of young women
from taking a keen interest in governance issues. In principle,
governments that have acceded to and ratified the African
Protocol on Gender and Development need to fully implement
the protocol and make it a reality rather than simply another
document awaiting filing in the archives. And this principally
starts with the women’s movements in exerting greater pressure
on their respective governments to respect and implement such
regional and international instruments.
Access to information: Provision of alternative media
It is essential to facilitate and ensure that young women in
marginalised communities are kept abreast of all developments
occurring in their countries as well as in the region and beyond
through a robust, non-partisan and young-women sensitive
information generation and dissemination initiative. This can
be done through alternative media – such as print media that
may be printed in vernacular languages. It can also be in the
form of community radio stations, which allow young women
to participate. There is a need to take advantage of the relative
increase in tele-density that has been recorded throughout
the region over the last five years, which means that women
now have better access to mobile phone technology. Since
marginalised young women are gradually having access to
mobile phones it will also be important to use the phones as a
medium of information exchange through, for example, short
message service (SMS). Providing up to date and accurate
information promotes young women’s participation from an
informed perspective.
Provision of a non-restrictive capital fund and
technical support
Another key strategy that can be used in addressing the negative
plight of young women is to ensure that they have access to
sustainable livelihoods and at the same time are able to have a
certain level of liquidity and disposable income. This dictates
that they should be able to own and have access to critical means
of production, chief among them being land as the principal
resource for production. They also need to be assisted to acquire
mining rights and be able to have legal and formal access to
minerals found in their localities, which they can channel through
formal markets.
Easy lines of credit also need to be availed to them to assist
them to start and support their business initiatives. Many young
women have brilliant business ideas that can contribute towards
lifting them out of poverty but many times these ideas remain a
dream until they die a natural death because the young women
fail to access start-up capital. Therefore, there is a critical
need to provide a fund that does not have restrictive collateral
requirements for young women. The fund can be in the form
of a revolving fund that is made available to young women at
zero interest for the sole reason of assisting them to nurture
their business initiatives and earn a living out of them. Economic
independence among young women is critical as it not only helps
to lift them out of poverty but also strategically positions young
women to influence decisions and processes.
The provision of start-up capital should be coupled with technical
support in the form of entrepreneurial training in order to fully equip
young women with the requisite skills for business management.
Such training can also broaden their understanding of business
structures thereby widening opportunities for young women, which
can further aid them to explore and realise sustainable livelihoods
that ultimately promote sustainable development.
Mentorship and twinning programmes
The last but equally important strategy is to facilitate mentorship.
Records have it that many people who have successfully
established empires from nothing have at a certain time in
their lives received mentorship from more experienced people.
Therefore, it is essential to twin young women with successful
women who can walk alongside the young women in their journey
to a new life, providing them with the necessary guidance and
moral support to continuously inspire the young women not to
give up. This would obviously also include twinning programmes
across geographical spaces.
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Conclusion
In this article I have illustrated how the marginalisation of geolocalities into which young women are born perpetuates economic
injustices among young women contrary to those born in urban
localities. We have seen how the problems that they suffer are multifaceted, that it starts from their exclusion in accessing education, to
lack of employment opportunities, and subsequently limited access
to health facilities. This is exacerbated by the fact that rural, mining
and farming communities are strongly connected to traditional and
cultural beliefs and practices that largely discriminate against the girlchild and favour their male counterparts. It is such beliefs that have
further denied young women access to, and control of, resources that
could lessen their burden and probably give them a voice in decisionmaking. As a result of such inequalities, young women continue to live
in a vicious cycle of poverty, which is transmitted through generations.
The militaristic culture of politics and the centralisation of governance
systems is also a deliberate stance to exclude young women from
participating in politics and contesting for public office. Although
this applies to all women and young women of different geographical
orientations, it is worse in marginalised environs due to a lack of access
to information. This paper has further explained how young women
are also left out in the women’s movements in our region. The women’s
movements in our region are not broad-based, they are concentrated
and their interventions are also concentrated in major cities and towns.
Thus, the whole analysis of marginalised young women’s situations
makes it imperative to scale up recognition and programming by
all stakeholders – including by women’s movements – for young
women in rural, farming and mining communities for us to achieve
social justice and contribute towards sustainable development in the
southern African region.
Glanis Changachirere works with the Institute for Young Women Development in
Zimbabwe, a young women-led initiative that seeks to promote sustainable livelihoods
among young women. She can be contacted at [email protected]
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Socio-economic
rights for
young women in
southern Africa
By Luta Shaba
“Try to be independent rather than
dependant. If more people had this type
of mindset we could reduce dependence
on others for things like cash or the desire
to get married for security,” Cleopatra,
24 years old.1
T
his is a profound statement coming
from a young woman in a southern African country – a region that has significantly
high levels of poverty and an equally significantly large population of young people
whose future currently is mostly bleak. According to the UNDP Human Development
Report (2010), the vast majority of the world’s
youth – some 87 percent – live in developing
countries and face challenges deriving from
limited access to resources, education, training, employment, and broader economic development opportunities. Although there is
no disaggregated data on youth living below
the poverty line, it is evident that a substantial number of young people reside in areas
where poverty constitutes a major challenge.
The apposite question is how a 24-year-old
young woman can afford to be independent
and not rely on others, or take marriage as an
option for her economic security.
intervention areas to achieve this objective
include gender equality, economic liberalisation and development, infrastructure support
for regional integration and poverty eradication, trade, sustainable food security, human
and social development, and combating the
HIV and AIDS pandemic (SARDC, 2008,
page 5). However, it does not include specific
targets for youths, especially women.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the
Southern African Development Community
(SADC) has identified poverty eradication
as the overarching priority and main goal in
its 15-year development blueprint. 2 Priority
The reality is that economies in the region
are largely agro-based with an average
of 60 percent of people residing in rural
areas and deriving their livelihoods from
subsistence agriculture. Women account for
70 percent of these farmers and 60 percent
of those living with HIV and AIDS (SARDC
2008, page 6). What this points to is the
need for interventions that encapsulate
the main source of economic activity, the
fact that women are already engaged in
this activity and that most of them require
assistance in dealing with HIV and AIDS.
We also know from statistics that young
women are the most infected with HIV and
AIDS. Thus, while women generally lack
access to productive resources such as land,
technology, credit, education and training
and formal employment resulting in higher
poverty levels among women compared to
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men (SARDC, 2008, page 8), interventions must ensure that young
women are a priority within this context.
of existing established corporates, whose intentions are clearly to keep
out too many players in the local markets, so as to maximise profit.
While the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG) speaks of
achieving gender equality and enhancing women’s empowerment,
what is often missed in States’ reports on progress in relation
to this target is the purpose of development. Statistical analysis
often overlooks the fact that we are dealing with individual human
beings, separate social groups that have specific needs and specific
vulnerabilities. These human beings are sexed, gendered, raced,
aged and located in specific demographical categories, which are
often strongly linked to structural patterns of exclusion, privilege and
opportunity. One of the often neglected aspects of intersectionality
is the mix of sex, age and geographical location, which has placed
young women in the global South – and especially those in rural
areas – at the extreme end of exclusion, and made them the
most vulnerable to economic exploitation and marginalisation.
Institutional arrangements like Gender Commissions and Ministries
of Gender among others have often ended up being manipulated
by political exigencies and, coupled with crippling resource
constraints, have not been able to deliver meaningful changes in the
lives of women and girls.
The attempt to achieve the MDGs in the SADC region, for instance,
has been a mixed bag of progress and regression. “There have
been efforts to improve the financial position of women through
entrepreneurship programmes, the establishment of women’s banks,
credit institutions and development funds. Trade policies have
been revised to improve women’s access to credit and a number
of countries have begun land reforms that, along with other things,
aim to improve women’s access to land.”4 (Oxfam 2008, page 17)
Unfortunately, the broader macroeconomic policies pursued in the
context of political expediency have eroded most of these gains.
Whose development?
The objectives of development are succinctly3 stated as to:
•Increase the availability and widen the
distribution of basic life sustaining goods such
as food, shelter, health and protection;
•Raise levels of living, including, in
addition to higher incomes;
•Enhance material well being but
also to generate greater individual
and national self esteem; and
•Expand the range of economic and social choices.
It has now become widely understood and accepted that the
development mix has, as its main ingredient, political decisions
and their economic impact. Development interventions on their
own without the requisite state policies, regulatory frameworks and
adequate resources to ensure the implementation of development
objectives will continue to be subject to the control and manipulation
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Historical overview and context
For this discussion and the suggested action points to make sense, it
is necessary to give a brief overview of the historical background that
led to the current economic state of black Africans, women and young
women in the SADC region.
The colonial education systems were designed to build a critical
mass of black semi-skilled workers for industry and a smaller group of
professionals who could enter the lower strata of the middle classes. It
was an education designed to make people efficient functionaries that
were literate, skilled in very specific areas and able to carry out orders
up to a point. There was a glass ceiling on all. They could not, and
were not allowed to, make strategic business decisions and sometimes
‘thinking’ was cause for reprimand. The real business decisions were
made by senior executives in consultation with the Board of Directors.
During this era, girls were generally discouraged from entering the
world of formal employment because their presence presented
accommodation challenges in the urban areas, and their labour
was required in rural homes to supplement the meagre salaries of
husbands, who had been forced into formal employment mostly
through coercive taxes like the hut and cattle tax. This arrangement
was later adopted by locals as being part of a ‘culture’ – that girls do
not go to school! This contributed to the elevation of the status of the
male child, who was looked up to as the provider of the cash for the
taxes while the girl became a burden to be married-off at the earliest
opportunity. This legacy still subsists to this day, where the economic
success of a female child is not expected, and where even if she does
succeed she is not considered to have attained her life’s purpose,
until after she has found a husband to whom her success can then be
attributed. On the other hand, this created tensions of ownership of
the work space because this had been the only space left for males to
attain recognition and status, and the presence of women continues
to pose deep challenges for males brought up in a mindset where
material success and wealth are considered a male preserve.
Most young women are not accorded the opportunity to analyse their
status in this context or even if they do, the conditioning has been so
thorough that they are prepared to access their development needs
through a husband, and this becomes their main focus. Some will
even refrain from visible accumulation of wealth so that they do not
intimidate a possible future mate. So even when they are ambitious,
young women are made to feel that it is not proper to want money –
keeping this as a preserve of young men.
arguments came in with the focus on income-generating projects and
universal and free access to primary education policies. These policy
approaches contributed tremendously to raising the skills levels of the
female with inroads being made into the technical fields of mining and
geology, medicine, engineering and power and energy. Unfortunately,
the transition from income-generating projects to small businesses has
proved easier said than done, with unclear modalities for doing this, and
even fewer resources commitments by stakeholders.
If one zooms in on the black African businessperson, the first thing
that becomes apparent is that he has a limited appreciation of
business even though men dominate this sector. Black empowerment
programmes assumed that the new businesspeople would
automatically know what to do once they were given the reins of
corporations and the ability to access loans. The few that accessed
structured training and mentorship programmes are the ones that
made it, while the rest lurch from one corrupt deal to the next and
cannot be entrusted with mentoring anyone about how to start and
run a business. The willingness not to be content with low expertise
and the willingness to learn are prerequisites for success. Yet few are
willing to do this. This partly explains why most new businesspeople
are in commodity broking.
Policies designed to empower historically excluded locals like Black
Economic Empowerment (BEE) in South Africa and Indigenisation
in Zimbabwe tend to benefit only a few individuals and these get
paraded as symbols of success when the great majority do not get to
access these benefits. It is interesting to notice that not many young
black women fit the bill of ‘successful BEEs’ and it is precisely because
these policies have not been designed with young women in mind.
They remain largely marginalised.
This low appreciation of commerce and principles of investing in
business, coupled with media stories that profile the ‘overnight
successes’ especially in the telecommunications industry – with
people like Strive Masiyiwa who has made a mark on the global
telecommunications map – has bred a generation of young (and
not so young) people looking for that one deal that will make them
instant millionaires. The political irresponsibility of States, which
have not acted to curb corruption has exacerbated this tendency,
while business start-up loans are used to buy fancy cars because
no one has explained to these new entrepreneurs the difference
between a capital expenditure and running costs, profit centres
and cost centres and why buying the Managing Director the
latest Mercedes or twin cab (with all due respect to the brand
manufacturers) is not going to get the business to generate revenue
unless you are running a transport company and the cars are for hire.
Reflections on policies and the location of women and girls
This very brief historical and contextual overview can be illustrated in
how the States from pre-independence to the post-independence
eras in southern and the rest of Africa have responded to women’s
development needs. The positioning of the female as housewife was the
basis of the welfarist policies that focussed on teaching her the skills to
be best at child-rearing, house cleaning, home economics, laundry and
looking after herself. As women in the global South made louder noises
for inclusion in the education system and in wage labour, efficiency
The corporate sector and women’s labour rights:
challenges for young women
The structural issues that affect young women’s ability to enter and
compete in the world of business are largely based on the nature
of the private corporation5 . Their ability to learn strategic business
management is limited by glass ceilings and revolving doors that
keep them cordoned off in the pink ghettoes of human resources
and public relations. There is no evidence of genuine commitment
and political will to remove these glass ceilings and revolving doors
in our region. Even in the limited spaces where they find themselves
in business, women’s marital responsibilities keep them from taking
up the more challenging positions, which are a prerequisite for
promotion. For instance, when a young man marries, he can now
fly high because he has someone to take care of business at home.
Whereas when a young woman marries, she is tied down because she
now has to look after a husband and in most cases children as well.
Most women go into business either as single women or as business
partners with their husbands. This has implications for decisionmaking in the latter setting.
Another reality is that women are also expected to seek permission
from their husbands to attend training workshops if these involve
travelling, and sometimes this is denied and can directly impact on a
woman’s prospects for promotion. Younger women find it even more
difficult to negotiate this because of more limited negotiation skills.
In addition, young women are more cut off from networks by virtue
of their youth and low confidence. It is through these networks and at
meetings and workshops that one often learns about available loan
facilities, sources of raw materials and markets, and the wide range of
business opportunities that they could benefit from.
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It is not surprising that women are conspicuously absent from the
moneymaking sectors like large-scale agriculture, financial services,
energy, mining, transport and telecommunications. These are sectors
traditionally reserved for men and girls have not been encouraged
to venture into them. As such, women tend to have lower technical
know-how compared to men, largely because they have not been
exposed to technical fields to the same extent as men. These are the
fields such as mechanic, laboratory technician, production plant, food
technology, geology and farm management among others.
In addition to these specific challenges in the corporate and
other sectors, broader challenges for young women’s economic
empowerment lie in accessing these opportunities. For instance,
the provision of useful information remains a challenge, and without
focussed baselines this is not possible. Certain assumptions can be
made regarding the technical information that they require, but the
package has to be holistic and speak to their other social, economic
and political aspirations in a context where most of their teachings have
been obtained from the formal education system and the church, with
peer groups only serving to reinforce the culturally accepted mores.
Outside of political parties and church groups, young women are not
strongly socially mobilised, and the levels of socio-political and economic
consciousness remain low. Their positioning as the most excluded social
group also contributes to keeping them the least informed.
There has not been enough effort directed towards establishing
training processes aimed at them alone, and there are no structured
linkages for business incubation and support. Most new entrants
into business, especially those without prior exposure to the middle
levels of the corporate structure often lack basic skills of presentation,
and issues of ethics and business conduct can work against them
as they try to get themselves established. In addition, an ingrained
dependency attitude also often works against younger females in
venturing into business in that there is an expectation that someone
is going to come and hold their hand whereas their male counterparts
are more aggressive in pursuing business opportunities.
Prospects for inclusion and opportunities
for empowerment
Unfortunately, youth policies in the region have tended to be used
as political mobilisation tools rather than frameworks for enabling
participation by young people in development processes in most
countries. The implementation of these policies has been tainted with
all the characteristics of some mainstream political parties in southern
Africa, namely violence, intimidation, sexual exploitation and high
levels of corruption.
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For a start, despite the rhetoric of the State, the policies are not clear
on how to get to the young woman in both the cities and the rural
areas. Non-State actors have also not done much better since their
programmes that target women for economic empowerment have
not had the wherewithal to zero in on the young woman and offer her
targeted interventions and, thus, she has remained below the radar.
Immediate questions that emerge in such scenarios include where to
locate young women and assist them in isolation, as they are either
living with their parents and under their supervision, and development
assistance cannot help them alone in an impoverished household.
Others argue that by 18 years of age, the girl child is already married
and she in now under her husband’s authority, and as such she cannot
be assisted in her isolation. Instead of stopping potential interventions,
such questions are actually useful in coming up with well thought out
and better designed programmes, which are best planned through
direct dialogue with the young women.
Another major challenge that presents itself is the nature of business
that most entry-level people go into. A snap survey was conducted
by the Women’s Trust, a Zimbabwean NGO, during the 2010
International Trade Fair in Bulawayo. Its main aim was to establish the
level of representation of female-owned companies at the fair, as well
as to assess the sex representation of the big corporations. Male Chief
Executives ran most of the big corporations and most of the women
exhibiting at the Fair were in Hall 5, where most of the exhibitions
were characterised by the following salient aspects:
•The businesses were not properly structured in terms of
registration and the nature of the business;
•The exhibitors had absolutely no sense of exhibiting let
alone trade; and
•Hall 5 was more for ‘flea market-type’ of businesses and this is
where most of the women exhibiting at the Fair were packed.
Overall, out of the 59 companies sampled, only 17 could state that
they had a sex balance in their exhibition teams.
One of the signs of economic collapse in an economy is the widening
gap between the rich and the poor as a result of skewed distribution
patterns. Economic recovery after the global recession can only succeed
through a multi-pronged approach, which allows existing businesses to
recover while facilitating a new middle-class and self-employed strata
to emerge. Building bridges for the participation of the impoverished
The starting point should be to make gender equality and women’s
empowerment an explicit objective, with associated resources and targets.
and economically marginalised (who are mainly women) creates the
enabling environment for more equitable economic, social and political
development, which fosters the stability necessary for investment and
macro economic growth. Without this, a nation only has individual
company profits and not national development. Given that women
constitute a disproportionately large number of the impoverished and
economically excluded, a wide gap between the rich and poor necessarily
translates into a gap between men and women. It has become imperative
for affirmative action to measure women’s economic empowerment and
development. It is time for more decisive and definitive measures to be
taken by development agencies and governments. One such measure
is the establishment of women’s banks and other modalities to enhance
direct access to finance and the mobilisation of excluded poor women,
especially those in the rural areas, in an organised fashion to enable them
to break the structural barriers and improve their livelihoods through
accessing economic opportunities.
However, in considering such measures, care should be taken to avoid
the ‘add young women and stir’ approach, which has led to so many
development failures in that past, with specific reference to women.
Programmes that target young women should be clear, focussed and
very specific in their measurable targets. Such interventions could
include the following:
•Sub-sector specific initiatives – such as community farming,
(poultry, piggery etc.), commodity trading, vegetable
marketing, food processing, salons, grinding mills etc.;
•Activity specific associations – with a geographical focus to
enable ‘locating’, monitoring and targeting assistance;
should be to make gender equality and women’s empowerment
an explicit objective, with associated resources and targets,
including a substantial increase in official development assistance,
and ensure that poor women and men in low-income countries
benefit from global trade. The next step would be to identify and
support advocates of gender equality at all levels, including those in
the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, to ensure States and
others are held accountable for their commitments. There is also the
need to scale up innovative and promising approaches to women’s
economic empowerment by expanding their economic opportunities,
strengthening their legal status and rights, and expanding
opportunities for women’s voices, inclusion and participation.
These commitments should be accompanied by broad strategies
that will enable a solid grounding and structuring of interventions to
improve young women's access to, and control over, resources. These
should include interventions to build entrepreneurship skills among
young women. The strategic actions in this regard will include:
•Empowerment and confidence- building sessions;
•Training and provision of simple reference materials;
•Facilitating the formation of groups for networking and mutual
support, and linking these to commercial bodies on trade and
commerce; and
•Facilitating research and information packaging and dissemination among beneficiaries.
•Formation of representative bodies – to facilitate effective
channelling of funds for young women’s projects
and initiatives; and
Another key strategy would be to improve women's access to funding
opportunities, which would include:
•Improving women’s skills in proposal writing, business
management, fundraising, and related skills; and,
•Small-scale business development interventions – grants and
resources could be offered by NGOs for short-term initiatives.
In addition, there is need for the State and other stakeholders not only
to overtly declare their commitment to young women’s empowerment
but also to match such declarations with action. The starting point
•Linking women with key networks that facilitate access
to resources.
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Yet another strategy should be lobbying for policies and practices
that improve women's access to funding and this will involve targeting
national institutions and donors, and lobbying such financial institutions
for more innovative lending practices as well as to enter into structured
networked arrangements with such bodies. Another key strategy should
be to improve women's earnings from their entrepreneurial activities.
The idea is to link up women with markets and supportive marketing
arrangements, link them up with providers of investment and asset
management advice, as well as protecting the rights of informal sector
entrepreneurs. One other goal in this regard would be to focus on
economic literacy interventions to improve understanding of global
trends and reduce exploitation among women, especially young women
who tend to be doubly vulnerable.
Conclusion
Research and studies have amply demonstrated the economic
role that women play in terms of ensuring household food security
as well as contributing to economic development within families
and communities. Yet, development interventions continue to
sideline women when it comes to the critical aspects of economic
empowerment that provide the stepping-stones from traditional
income generation to small enterprise development. The structuring
of income generating projects and the resources provided have been
woefully inadequate. The challenge for appropriate responses now
is the need to have a clear and targeted focus on young women and
to design interventions that go beyond the recycled approaches and
players. The question is whether the various stakeholders are willing
to take the risks required to go back to the drawing board and design
new and innovative ways that speak to the needs and aspirations of
young women in the region.
Luta Shaba is a lawyer by profession with a Masters in Policy Studies. She has expertise in women’s rights
as they pertain to policy, political participation and leadership, governance, rural development, conflict
transformation, management and economic development. She has authored two books and defines herself as
a mother, businesswoman and women’s rights advocate.
Endnotes
1. Makombe K. (Editor), 2004.
Young Women Speak, Challenges of
Empowerment for Young Feminists in
Zimbabwe, Women Leadership and
Governance Institute, Harare.
2. Women In Development Southern Africa
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Awareness, 2008.Beyond Inequalities,
Women In Southern Africa, Southern Africa
Research and Documentation Centre.
4. Mukasa Rosemary S. 2008. The African
Women’s Protocol Harnessing a Potential
Force for Positive Change, Oxfam, Fanele.
3. Todaro Michael P. 2000. Economic
Development Seventh Edition, New York
University, Addison – Wesley Longman, Inc.
5. International Labour Office, Geneva, 2000.
ABC of Women’s Worker’s Rights and Gender
Equality, Geneva International Labour Office.
Girls’ education: Key to development
By Wongani Grace Nkhoma
“There is no tool for development more effective than the education of girl.”
Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary General, April 2003.
O
ne would have imagined that following such powerful statements
by renowned world leaders, girls in southern Africa would be at
the centre of education policies in the region. But this is not so. Despite
such noble calls, the goal of achieving gender parity in primary and secondary education by 2005 was unmet – and will remain unmet by 2015
– in many southern African countries. What is particularly disheartening
is that this is an important, realistic and reachable goal. In turn, none of
the other Millennium Development Goals are likely to be met unless
there is significant progress in girls’ education. Educating girls is a sure
way to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality,
improve nutritional status and health, reduce poverty and dent the rates
of HIV infection and other diseases. All other development goals hinge
on meeting the goals of gender parity and universal quality education.
So, why are we getting it wrong?
therefore entitled to it. Yet more than 72 million children in the world
are out of school and almost 60 percent of them are girls (UNICEF/
UNESCO, 2006). The tragedy of this failure is that an unthinkable
number of girls are being abandoned to a bleak future. Why is this so?
There are many barriers to girls’ education in Africa, including poverty,
violence in education, the impact of HIV and AIDS, and gender roles
and traditions – to mention just a few. Addressing these challenges
is key to promoting education for girls. Globally, governments, UN
agencies, non-governmental organisations, civil society organizations
and others are not blind to these challenges, and are working together
to ensure more girls enrol and remain in school. However, these efforts
need to be stepped up if current tragedies are to be reversed. This
article contextualises girls’ education in southern Africa, highlighting
the challenges and proposing strategies for dealing with them.
There is no controversy about the fact that education is a fundamental
human right. As far back as the 1960s, the right to education has sat
comfortably in human rights frameworks and discourses. It is agreed
that access to education ends generational cycles of poverty and
provides a foundation for sustainable development. Every child is
The challenges
Southern Africa is a region with high levels of poverty, making
schooling inaccessible for many. Destitute families often cannot afford
to send all their children to school. If it means choosing between sons
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and daughters, girls usually lose out. Even in cases where primary
education is free, hidden costs such as books, supplies, uniforms or
food may prohibit sending girls to school. In societies where married
women live with their husbands’ kin, parents find little value in
investing limited funds in a daughter’s education only to see another
family reap the rewards. Other costs such as lost income or household
labour also derail girls’ chances of attending school. If household
money or chores are needed, girls often land up in the paid child
labour force or are required to fetch water, find firewood and care for
younger siblings or ill family members, while their parents work to
make a living.
sexual abuse, and sexualized touching or emotional abuse. This
violence is not restricted to the classroom or the school vicinities. It
happens in many school-related places, including on the way to and
from school. When parents are afraid that their daughters will not
be safe travelling to and from school or in the school environment
itself, they will keep them at home. An Open Society Initiative for
Southern Africa (OSISA) and ActionAid study in Malawi, Zambia
and Zimbabwe showed that violence against girls manifests its effects
in low enrolment of girls, poor academic performance, high dropout
rates, teenage pregnancy, early marriage, increasing rates of HIV and
psychological trauma.
Poverty is experienced against a backdrop of deep-rooted gender
roles in the region. These are partly responsible for derailing the
goal of promoting girls’ and women’s access to education. Male
children are usually privileged – ensuring that when educational
opportunities are limited, boys will take available classroom
space. On the other hand, girls are socialised to become homekeepers and child-bearers, placing less value on their educational
attainment. Early marriage for girls is pervasive in many cultures.
Bride prices are incentives for parents to forgo educating their
daughters and instead marry them off. For instance, statistics show
that forty percent of marriages in Malawi involve children from 15
to 18 years of age (Kadzamira, 2003). More worrying is that the role
of illiterate mothers in contributing an additional barrier to universal
education. Children whose mothers have no education are more
than twice as likely to be out of school compared to children whose
mothers have some education. In developing countries, 75 percent
of children out of primary school have mothers with no education.
These data underline the importance of getting as many girls and
future mothers into school as soon as possible and encouraging
them to stay on to complete their education.
In cases of pregnancy, official or informal educational policies
prohibit married or pregnant girls from attending school in many
countries. If a girl is attending school, once she is married or
pregnant her education is stopped. Such policies and practices
violate a girl’s right to education and are a major contributing factor
to high dropout rates among girls. Some countries such as Malawi,
South Africa and Zambia have re-entry policies that allow pregnant
girls to remain in school for as long as they are comfortable and
return to school after delivery. However, in cases where girls have
given birth and returned to school, the environment is not conducive
for their learning as they are faced with ridicule and discriminatory
language from both teachers and fellow learners. There is a huge
gap between policy and practice in this area, and more needs to be
done to ensure mechanisms that help girls stay in school once they
have re-entered.
As if family pressures (through socialisation and gender roles) were
not enough, schools themselves hurt the cause of girls’ education.
There are few women teachers, especially in higher levels of
education, to provide much-needed role models for young girls.
Furthermore, textbooks reinforce gender stereotypes, with boys
depicted as intelligent and active and girls as passive and docile. The
curricula choice offered by most schools often excludes girls from
mathematics, science and technology, and pushes them towards
food and nutrition or fashion and fabrics, subjects deemed to prepare
them for social care work. As a result, girls drop out when classes
are not relevant, and at completion, fail to compete with their male
counterparts for meaningful employment.
Apart from the stereotyped curricula and predominance of male
teachers in schools, the school environment is often not conducive
for girls. Violence against girls takes many forms, including rape,
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There are many other non-curriculum considerations that support girls’
education, and failing to provide them makes education inaccessible.
Universal education depends on an infrastructure that supports quality
education. Requirements for accessible, gender-sensitive schooling go
beyond the physical structure of a building or the classroom content.
If schools are located far from communities or students must travel on
unsafe or nonexistent roads, creative solutions must be found, otherwise
children, especially girls, will simply stay away.
As a coping mechanism, girls in rural communities opt for boarding
schooling, often living away from their families in huts built of mud
and sticks. The girls stay there to attend the closest school to their
community. They walk back to their villages on Saturdays to see their
parents and return to their temporary dwelling on Sunday with food
for the week.
Schools need safe water and separate, clean sanitation facilities. Too
often, schools have polluted water supplies and broken latrines. In
many cases there are no water or sanitation facilities at all. Many times
girls who put up with such deplorable conditions drop out once they
begin to menstruate.
HIV and AIDS: Girls are worst affected
One of the major hurdles to girl’s education in the past few decades
has been HIV and AIDS, which takes its toll disproportionately on
young people in our region, especially young women. In sub-Saharan
Africa, young women are three times more likely than young men to
be living with the disease (UNAIDS/UNFPA/UNIFEM, 2007).
Many children under the age of 15 in southern Africa have lost their
parents or guardians to AIDS-related diseases. The pandemic has
created a generation of orphans, unprotected and left to fend for
themselves. The consequence of this is that girls are taken out of
school to care for ailing family members or forced to work to replace
lost income. In sub-Saharan Africa, children aged 10 to 14 who have
lost both their parents are less likely to be in school than their peers
who are living with at least one parent. The cruel irony is that without
an education, children are deprived of the most effective means of
preventing HIV infection. A 2001 UNICEF survey in Zambia found
that women with secondary and higher education are more likely to
delay sex, while those with no education are more likely to have sex
without a condom.
The pandemic has also ravaged the education sector, which is losing
not only crucial funds and supplies, but also its most important
resources: teachers and administrators. As education opportunities
dwindle, girls tend to be sacrificed.
Armed conflict and other crises
Whether it is war, an economic crisis or a natural disaster, calamities
wreak havoc on children. For example, during the decade from
1996-2006, conflicts had a tremendous impact on children. An
estimated 2 million children died, 4.5 million were disabled, 12
million were made homeless and around 250,000 were active as
child soldiers (UNESCO, 2006). Millions of children continue to be
caught up in conflicts in which they are not merely casual observers
but targets of abuse and violence. Conflict and war have the most
devastating impact on education. Of the 77 million children reported
by UNESCO to be out of school around the world in 2006, 39 million
lived in conflict-affected states. Schools are often used as barracks
by the military, shelters for refugees and sites for administering
emergency services.
Conflict hurts all children – but particularly girls – when it comes
to education. Girls experience conflict and displacement in
different ways from boys because of the gender division of roles
and responsibilities and the targeting of girls by fighting forces. As
a proportion of school age-going children, fewer girls attend and
complete education in conflict-affected countries. For example, in
the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the war has lasted for
decades, girls are particularly vulnerable to abuse, unequal access
to schooling, while some fall victim to insecurity and death. To date,
4.4 million children are out of school – 2.5 million of whom are girls
(UNGEI, 2007). Still other girls suffer the effects of sexual violence
and additional deprivation that exposes them to various health
hazards, hunger and eventually put them at a high risk of not attaining
an education.
During conflict, gender inequality is exacerbated and social norms
break down. Women and girls often carry the heaviest burden of dayto-day family life during crises. Domestic violence surges during stress
and turmoil. And throughout history, rape has been used as a weapon
of war. Apart from being abducted, raped, and used as sex slaves
they are forcefully married to rebels and armed officials. Furthermore,
girls suffer from stigmatisation by the community and are treated
as outcasts during the reintegration process. Reunification with the
family may be particularly difficult for girls who have been abducted,
raped or sexually abused because of cultural and societal beliefs and
attitudes. This subjects girls to negative thoughts of having no future
prospects of marriage and eventually many girls become victims of
prostitution (UNGEI, 2007).
Recommendations
Progress in achieving girl’s education depends not just on providing
education but also on addressing the barriers that prevent girls from
starting or completing school. Education for girls can be increased and
improved by promoting their access to, and keeping them enrolled in,
primary and secondary schools and by supporting education policies
that are equitable. This requires a multifaceted and multi-layered
approach at family, community and national levels.
1. Abolishing school fees is the first and fundamental step. Schools
fees are a major impediment to girls’ education. Poor parents cannot
afford to pay them and where resources allow for only some of the
children to attend school, girls often lose out. Other hidden costs of
schooling need to be looked at as well. Textbooks, uniforms and school
development funds often stop parents from sending their children
to school, even where there are no school fees to be paid. Education
should be made free in its real sense or schemes and bursaries need
to be put in place to ensure girls go to and remain in school. Cash
transfers, food hampers etc. can serve as incentives for parents to keep
girls in schools, and governments can adopt such strategies.
2. Education should not only be made free but should be made
compulsory by law up to a certain acceptable level (or at least at
primary school level). Measures should also be put in place to ensure
that this law is enforced. Tough sanctions would ensure that those
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violating the law are brought to book. This will compel communities
and parents to send their children to school and see that they
complete it. Presently, although many states in the region have free
education policies, they have not made them compulsory. The final
decision has been left up to the parents, who are free to choose
whether to send their children to school or not.
3. Addressing traditions that prescribe gender roles for girls
and thereby keep them out of school. Governments need to work
with the custodians of tradition and culture to ensure that traditions
that are detrimental to girls’ education are abolished. Governments
also need to institute laws and policies promoting education for
girls that supersede all other customary and traditional laws. Stiff
punishments and penalties should be put in place to deter those who
perpetuate these harmful customs.
4. Ensuring safe and non-discriminatory school
environments is another way to increase the likelihood that
girls who enrol in school will keep coming to class. Schools should
have the necessary facilities such as girl-friendly toilets, sanitation
materials, water, comfortable chairs and desks. These help to
reduce absenteeism among girls, especially during menstruation. In
Bangladesh, for example, an 11 percent increase in female enrolment
followed a UNICEF school sanitation programme (UNDP, 2006).
Schools should also be within safe and short walking distance as this
encourages parents to send the girls to school with the assurance that
they will not be harmed or violated.
5. The presence of enough female teachers to act as role
models as well as mentors and counsellors is critical in keeping girls
in school. Often girls, especially those in rural areas, have no role
models to motivate them to remain in school. They see no benefit
in education if they have no one to look up to. Female teachers not
only motivate girls to remain in school but also act as advisors and
counsellors to girls when faced with issues that are more comfortably
discussed with females.
6. Unbiased learning content and less gendered choice
of subjects in education will keep girls motivated to stay in
school. Gender stereotypes are often prominent in teaching and
learning materials, where boys are portrayed as being good at
science subjects and taking up related professions, while girls
are portrayed as adopting more traditional roles. This limits the
ambitions of the girls. Addressing hidden curricula issues and
promoting critical thinking in teacher training programmes will
ensure teachers go into the classroom with an open mind to
encourage all learners, regardless of their gender, to participate
creatively in the classroom activities.
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7. Promotion and scaling up of innovative strategies and
programmes that keep girls in school is another way of
ensuring girl’s education. The ‘girl-to-girl’ strategy, piloted in
Madagascar, encourages teachers to identify girls who are at
risk of dropping out. These are then paired with girls from other
grades, who sign pledges to support their peers. The girls walk
to school, play during recess and do their homework together.
They advise each other on hygiene and social skills, and work
on building their confidence in the classroom. The ‘mother
group’ model in Malawi – and many other countries – sees
women actively participating in the education of girls from their
community. These groups of women often talk to the girls,
provide the materials the girls need in school through money
generated from small businesses, and engage with traditional
leaders to prevent harmful cultural practices from keeping girls
out of school.
8. All governments must ratify and implement the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) and other related conventions and protocols.
Governments also need to put in place polices and laws that
protect girls against violence in education. Efforts must also
be made to ensure that these are widely publicised and legally
enforced. Furthermore, something that is critical to increasing girls’
access to education is ensuring that there are policies to prevent
girls from being removed from school due to early marriage,
pregnancy or any other reason.
9. In conflict-affected countries, schools must be declared
protected and conflict-free zones. Often where there is
conflict, schools become easy targets and education becomes
the most likely sector to be neglected and the last to receive
attention. Policies should be put in place to accelerate learning
for children affected by conflict. Reintegration of children
affected by conflict should be prioritised and children,
especially girls, affected by the traumas of conflict should be
provided with counselling and psychosocial support as part of
the rehabilitation process.
10. Adult literacy programmes for women and men will
motivate parents to keep their children in school. Statistics
show that literate and educated parents are more likely to send
their children to school and keep them there than their illiterate
and uneducated counterparts. Therefore, governments need
to scale up the provision of adult literacy programmes. This will
have a ripple effect on the education of their children as the
more literate a population, the higher the chances of achieving
universal education.
Conclusion
Achieving universal girls’ education remains a distant prospect in
many southern African countries despite the worldwide focus on
‘Education for All’. Girls continue to face discrimination in accessing
education in the majority of countries, even though slow but
significant progress is being achieved.
If the major challenges discussed in this article are seriously addressed,
especially reducing the cost of sending girls to schools and addressing
the gender roles and traditions that often keep them out of the
classroom, the goal can still be achieved. All it calls for is commitment
and political will on the part of governments to ensure that girls access
school and complete their education.
It is important to remember that lost educational opportunities for girls
today translates into lost generations tomorrow. On the other hand,
educating girls now will see ripple effects in the future, as their children
are more likely to follow the same pattern. Allowing girls’ futures – and
their children’s futures – to be blighted by a lack of education can no
longer be accepted. It is clear that the time to act is now.
Wongani Grace Nkhoma is Education
Programme Manager, Open Society
Initiative for Southern Africa.
References
Kadzamira, E. C. (2003) ‘Malawi’s Experience in Promoting Girls’
Education’, paper presented at The Global Women’s Action Network
for Children Conference, King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Centre,
Dead Sea, Jordan, June 11-13, 2003.
UNAIDS/UNFPA/UNIFEM (2007) Women and HIV and AIDS:
Confronting the Crisis.
UNDP Human Development Report (2006) Beyond Scarcity: Power,
Poverty and the Global Water Crisis
UNESCO (2006) Equivalency Programmes for Promoting Lifelong
Learning. Bangkok,
UNGEI (2007) ‘A Review of the 2010 Education for All Global
Monitoring Report Using an Equity and Inclusion Lens’
UNICEF/UNESCO (2006) Children Out of School: Measuring
Exclusion from Primary Education
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Young women and sexual and reproductive health and rights
Young women and sexual and
By Talent Jumo
Perhaps one of the liveliest sessions at the Young Women’s Festival in Harare, in
October 2010, was the talk show on sex, sexuality and issues of body politics! As Luta
Shaba challenged young women participants to open-up and share in plenary what their
understanding and experiences of sex, sensuality, sexuality, sexual pleasure and related
issues were the atmosphere in the room crescendoed from muffled giggles to loud outbursts
of laughter as the young women became more and more relaxed and comfortable in this
space. This is understandable given the limited spaces and opportunities that young women
have to speak freely about these issues in southern Africa. It also explains why most media
reports on the event reported it as a festival to discuss sex and sexuality, which in fact was
only one among many other issues that affect young women in the region. Yet, the reality in
the 21st century makes it imperative for such issues to be freely and openly discussed since
they are at the core of life for many young women in southern Africa today.
Body politics
M
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ost people in African societies still shy away from an open
discussion about women’s sexuality and sexual choices.
The claim that making the personal political is ‘Western’
and ‘un-African’ has been widely accepted. Therefore, challenging
discrimination on the grounds of sex as a human rights issue is
dismissed as ‘un-African’ – implying that the widespread acts of
violence against women have become characteristic of our society
today because they are condoned and justified as a prerequisite
to preserving ‘African’ values. Women’s bodies are policed and
constantly under attack. From an early age, young girls are taught that
their bodies are dirty – harbingers of disease – and certain limits are
put on how much flesh can and cannot be exposed. This is repeated at
many levels, from coercing them to pull their labia, to virginity testing
and arrests of women who are perceived to be deviant i.e. women in
sex work, hence systematically denying women any form of control
over their bodies.
a culture of silence, which maintains the status quo and brings about
misery through sexual violence, HIV and AIDS, maternal mortality,
female genital mutilation or marginalisation of those who break the
rules such as single mothers, widows who re-marry, sex workers, people
with same-sex sexualities and transgender people. As a result, survivors
of sexual abuse and gender-based violence, for example, have not
been able to access retribution because the incidents are seen as
‘domestic matters’ that can be solved through traditional procedures.
Too many reports have been written about victims of violence who
have been scorned and turned away by the police on the premise that
these domestic matters would soon disappear and many women have
been maimed or even killed as a result. But even then, society seems
to have accepted such atrocities to the extent that people read such
news reports and flip through the pages without giving them a second
thought. It is against this backdrop that women and girls of Africa unite
and organize for social transformation.
Sexually active young women are discouraged from discussing sex
openly with their partners, since women are encouraged to be ignorant
and inexperienced. This means that young women are unlikely to be
able to communicate their need for safer sex with partners. Lack of
communication skills compromises women’s ability to take full charge
of their bodies, hence exposing them to unwanted pregnancies,
gender-based violence, sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs) and other
reproductive tract infections. Lack of communication skills leads to
Young women’s vulnerabilities
Growing up in rural or urban Africa, whatever the case may be, is
punctuated by a feeling of vulnerability for most young women
and girls. Our generation inherits a socio-economic order that is
punctuated by gross inequalities between and within nations, as aptly
illustrated in Tendai Makanza’s article, elsewhere in this issue. The
current socio-economic order presents a serious threat to women’s
Condom education is
associated with early sexual
experimentation and promiscuity.
rights in the region. For instance, Structural Adjustment Programmes
(SAPs) implemented by many states in southern Africa in the 90s
resulted in the rolling back of the welfare state and accelerated
the downward spiral in key social indicators, particularly in health
and education. At the same time, trade liberalisation unleashed
competition that further depressed the local economies. Countries
like Zimbabwe and Zambia were put in a position where governments
kept importing poverty and exporting wealth through debt servicing.
Today, the turnaround of the economies remains an elusive dream
as unemployment and poverty continue to rise. A huge percentage
of our populations have migrated from their countries in search of
greener pastures. Experiences shared by young Zimbabwean women
living in neighbouring South Africa show how poverty deepens
women’s vulnerabilities in a context where most young female migrant
workers, for example, find it difficult to secure a permanent job
and most are forced to engage in transactional sex for survival and
sometimes to evade deportation in the case of illegal migrants.
Furthermore, it is important to emphasise that the current education
curricula for most African countries are influenced by stereotypical
attitudes about young people’s sexuality. Educating young people
about condoms is still controversial in most countries in southern
Africa, largely due to cultural and religious reasons. Condom
education is associated with early sexual experimentation and
promiscuity. Hence sexual education either does not exist in schools,
or is limited to messages on abstinence as educational practitioners
believe they have a moral responsibility to deny young people sexual
health messages on condom use, contraception and post-abortion
care. This is despite the fact that research has shown clear evidence
that well-designed programmes on sex education, which include
messages about safer sex as well as those about abstinence, may
influence the delay of sexual activity and lead to a reduction in the
number of sexual partners as well as increased contraceptive use
among those who are already sexually active.
Clearly our governments are in a state of denial, and this continues to
impact negatively on women and girls on the continent. Therefore, one
can easily conclude that the state apparatus is not responsive to the
needs and lived realities of young women. This – together with religious
and traditional fundamentalisms – has influenced societal attitudes to
the extent that women are sanctioned for controlling their own bodies.
The consequences of conspiracy, silence and inequality
It has been observed – and rightfully so – that generally between
the age of the last childhood vaccination and the first pregnancy,
girls are ignored by the health sector! Therefore, young women are
‘an endangered species’. Life expectancy for females in Zimbabwe
for example is 34 years – the lowest in the world, according to World
Health Organisation. Early deaths amongst young women have been
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Young women and sexual and reproductive health and rights
linked to maternal deaths, which are a result of a number of factors
such as early/forced/abusive marriages, women's poor control over
access to and use of the contraceptives of their choice, husbands or
mother-in-laws dictating women's care-seeking behaviour, overall
poor health including poor nutrition, poverty, lack of health education
and awareness, domestic violence and, poor access to affordable
quality health care, including basic and comprehensive emergency
obstetric services. All these factors contribute to the ‘three delays’
in seeking and utilising appropriate health care: i.e. delays in seeking
professional health care, delays in reaching the appropriate health
facility, and delays in receiving care.
Epidemiological studies show that those who are most socially and
economically disadvantaged are at a higher risk of HIV infection. The
risk of HIV infection for young women is increased by socio-cultural,
political and economic forces such as poverty, migration, conflict and
civil disturbance. Young women continue to face the increased risks of
HIV infection by virtue of their social position, unequal life chances, rigid
and stereotypical gender roles, and poor access to education and health
services. Sexual and gender-based violence both in the public and private
spheres is one of the factors fuelling the AIDS pandemic among women.
It is clear that traditional responses to HIV and AIDS failed to
recognise and respond to the socio-cultural factors that deepen
women and girls’ vulnerability to HIV infection – in particular, gender,
sex and sexuality perspectives. Despite the fact that HIV and AIDS
was long understood to belong with sexual and reproductive health,
implementing agencies tended to treat it in isolation. Broader sexual
and reproductive health and rights issues were pushed to the margins
and the few programmes that incorporated these issues focused on
particular mainstream issues such as reproduction, i.e. family planning,
and discourses framed within heteronormative sexual relationships,
putting emphasis on women’s prescribed roles as wives and mothers.
Debates and policy recommendations evolved largely around what is
culturally sanctioned and permissible. ‘Rights’ continue to be explored
within parameters of cultural prescriptions about women’s roles and
bodies and fail to address the patriarchal tendencies that promote
hierarchical sexual relationships, sexual domination and deny women
control over their bodies and sexuality.
These patriarchal tendencies were supported by retrogressive and
reactionary policies like the ‘Gag Rule’ and PEPFAR that promoted
abstinence-only messages and supported institutions making
anti-‘prostitution’ pledges that failed to recognise women and girls’
lived realities, undermining women’s ability to access quality sexual
and reproductive health care and services. For these reasons, ABC
(abstinence, being faithful to a life-long partner and condom use) has
not been a very successful strategy for combating the spread of HIV
and AIDS. Therefore, there is a high prevalence of unprotected sex
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both within and outside marriage, accompanied by high risks of HIV/
AIDS/STI, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions.
From paper to practice
It is important to acknowledge commitments that African heads of
state and governments have made through regional and international
agreements on women’s health and human rights. The Convention
on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW) (1979), the Vienna Declaration on Human Rights (1993),
the International Conference on Population and Development
(ICPD) Plan of Action (1994), the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action (1995), the Millennium Declaration (2000), the Protocol to the
African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003), the Solemn
Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (2004), the Maputo Plan of
Action (2006), and others hold the promise of saving millions of lives,
empowering women, addressing the scourge of illiteracy, hunger and
malnutrition and ensuring that Africa’s children, women and girls have
access to high-quality education and good health to lead productive
lives. However, agreements and declarations are not self-implementing.
There is a need for concerted efforts to ensure that governments shift
from paper to practice in order to facilitate environments where women
and girls can attain and enjoy unfettered access to their sexual and
reproductive rights.
There is a need to address young women’s issues to enable them
to participate actively, equally and effectively at all levels of social,
educational, economic, political, cultural and civic life. African
Governments should respond to the call to uphold and prioritise
women’s rights, particularly sexual and reproductive health rights
for young women, as these are key to attaining the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) and other agreed milestones.
Responses premised on the universality and interdependency of rights
that promote women’s rights to choices and sexual freedoms, including
fundamental issues of abortion, sexual orientation, pleasure, and the
fight for freedom from coercion, violence or punishment as means
of sexual surveillance are required to ensure progress. One cannot
overemphasise the need for policies to recognise the inter-linkages
between sex, sexuality and the overall political discourse around
ownership, power and control over resources and opportunities.
Invest in girls’ education
Africa should seriously find the means for Africa’s women to gain
access to better educational facilities, where the focus is not just on
quantity of students but rather on quality of education offered. Thus,
special considerations need to be taken into account to ensure that
the factors that inhibit the access of girls to education are effectively
addressed in the educational system. Quality relevant education
(including sexuality education), employment and income-generating
opportunities should be made available to young women and girls as a
foundation for their overall empowerment.
Engender HIV and AIDS responses, protect and defend
women’s rights
It has been universally acknowledged that the face of HIV and AIDS
in Africa is the face of a young woman. The important question is:
to what extent have responses been tailored to address this very
fact? Only a gendered, rights-based approach that accounts for the
different effects of the disease on men and women will be able to
reduce infection rates. Measures should be put in place to ensure that
young women are empowered to take greater control over their lives.
These include legal services to ensure that their rights are protected.
In addition, health information and services should be accessible,
affordable, receptive and responsive to the needs of young people.
Health promoters and staff should not reinforce stereotypes or
maintain negative attitudes against young unmarried women, as is the
case in most parts of Africa, whereby young women are affected by
health provider attitudes that impede their quest to access sexual and
reproductive health information and services.
Platform for young women
It is necessary for young women to speak with an amplified voice, and
demand that governments deliver for women, who have delivered for
nations since time immemorial. Movement building by young women
is critical in building a sustainable response to the challenges related
to sexual and reproductive health and rights that they face. Deliberate
steps should be taken to create/strengthen platforms for, and the
capacities of, young women to meaningfully, actively and effectively
participate in the economic, social and political spheres and at all
levels in society. Programmes that take a transformative rather than
welfare approach can lead to sustained dialogue and action by young
girls and women themselves, which are premised on the universality
and interdependency of rights.
That our governments have enacted laws to protect women has been
acknowledged but the tragedy remains that most women and girls
are ignorant about how these laws protect their rights, hence, the
existing laws have not enhanced access to rights for majority of the
women. Limited knowledge of sexual and reproductive health rights
weakens advocacy on gaps in the provisions of the legal instruments
that protect women’s rights. Therefore, it is imperative that girls and
young women are informed about their rights to seek protection and
legal redress as provided for by the existing laws, and to promote
among them proactive behaviour in protecting their bodily integrity.
Constraints hindering such behaviour also need to be discovered
through experience, so that they can be addressed through advocacy
for further legal reforms and for survivor friendly procedures.
Advocacy is needed to promote the strengthening of policies,
structures, systems, operational procedures and the accountability of
law enforcement agencies.
Young women’s movements should lobby governments so that
constitutions should guarantee and protect the right to health for all,
providing explicit clauses that guarantee quality service delivery on
all matters that relate to women’s sexual and reproductive health and
rights. Government and partners should demonstrate commitment
towards women’s health and rights and this should be reflected through
improved resourcing for health as well as rigorous commitments in
terms of implementation and follow up of existing policies. Governments should be held accountable for their actions. If they can pay for
guns, ammunition and war, they surely can pay for health and education.
Building and promoting young women’s capacities to realise their
inner strength and determination to navigate the possibilities of more
dignified and meaningful lives both in the private and public spheres is
important. The ultimate aim should include supporting and sustaining
a movement of young women and girls who can actively pursue
their legal rights to gain the benefits of advances. Inner strength as
a political resource enables young women to realise their agency
and assume greater control over their bodies and sexualities and
to discover the reservoirs of personal and political courage that lies
within, individually and together. This will be instrumental in the fight
for what lies beyond oppressive social systems and circumstances.
Talent Jumo is a teacher by profession. Her activism began as a
student in 2002. An Alumni of the Development Alternatives for
the New Era (DAWN), Training for Transformation, and the Young
Women’s Leadership and Knowledge Institute, Talent worked
extensively with the Community Working Group on Health in
Zimbabwe, where she coordinated community-based initiatives on
HIV and AIDS, gender and sexuality from 2005 to 2009. Talent, a
feminist activist, currently coordinates the Reproductive Health and
Rights desk at the Young Women’s Leadership Initiative, a youth
based organisation that she was instrumental in setting-up.
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Peace building: Any hope for young women as strategic partners?
Peace building:
Any hope for young women as strategic partners?
By Grace Chirenje
I have been looking at photographs of peace-building delegations sent to areas of conflict and upheavals in the
recent past in countries like Sudan, Madagascar, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Libya, Egypt and even Zimbabwe. One
fact was quite stark in all of them … women were absent in these pictures. This is the reality across the globe.
This lack of inclusion of women in peace-building efforts raised a lot of questions in my mind. Why is there a
lack of visibility and participation of young women in peace-building efforts? Is it that they have never had any
traditional role in conflict resolution even in the African context? Is it about their intellectual capacities or is it
the structural issues, definition or even the history of this field that has led to their near invisibility?
T
hese questions have in turn pushed me to ponder on the question of whether
young women have any hope of being strategic partners in peace building and
conflict transformation efforts in the world, despite the fact that they are the primary
victims and survivors of conflict. I was not convinced the answer is a strong ‘Yes’. It
appears to me that there is still a need to work around many hurdles before we can
get to a resounding ‘Yes!’
In a world that seems to be facing fresh conflicts and where many citizens are beginning
to demand the recognition of their rights, it is apparent that peace building and peace
pacts are going to be inevitable. Therefore, there is an urgent need to talk about
the role of women and in particular young women as strategic partners in ensuring
sustainable peace in communities, countries, regions and the world at large.
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Defining peace and conflict: Challenging the paradigm
The term ‘peace building’ is often used variably and in many instances,
depending on the user, refers to different processes and products.
The term came into widespread use after 1992 when Boutros BoutrosGhali, the then United Nations (UN) Secretary General announced
his Agenda for Peace. Since then peace building has become a
broadly used term but most often ill defined and connoting activities
that go beyond crisis intervention such as building of government
structures and institutions.
Boutros-Ghali’s Agenda for Peace discussed peace building in terms
of “rebuilding the institutions and infrastructures of nations torn by
civil war and strife and building bonds of peaceful mutual benefit
among nations formerly at war” (UN, 1992, p. 8). The fact that the
concept of peace building was coined by a representative of the UN,
an adult man and a high profile world leader, with specific reference to
“rebuilding the institutions and infrastructures of nations torn by civil war
and strife and building bonds of peaceful mutual benefit among nations
formerly at war” (ibid) probably explains the reason women and young
people – especially young women – are not often included, given the
limited space women and youth are generally accorded in the political
and public spheres.
The definition did not include (considering the high level nature of
the UN) a process in which young women could make an input into
defining peace building from their own perspective as primary victims
and survivors of conflict. As such, this can be regarded as a limited
framework of definition, because it tends to focus on peace and conflict
as it pertains to institutions rather than people. This focus on national
institutions, by default, speaks of men as leaders in peace building since
the reality is that they are the ones that dominate public institutions and
domains. As a result, peace building missions and efforts have been
a male domain – believed to be best resolved by adult men, who are
perceived to be the custodians of wisdom and political clout.
Another important point to note on this early definition of peace
building is that it focuses mainly on the nations that have suffered
civil strife. Therefore, it excludes the gendered nature of conflict from
a people’s perspective and thus ignores the gendered humanitarian
aspect as well. Young women are excluded from coining their own
ways of addressing conflict from their own level as stakeholders in
violence and conflict. It seems to me that this definition limits peace
building to policymakers who are in most cases aloof and not in touch
with the reality on the ground. The result is that young women are
sidelined from being strategic partners in this sector.
It is probably this gap in conceptualization that led Mazurana and
McKay (1999) to use a feminist analysis to examine women’s meanings
of peace building at UN, grassroots and NGO levels. They concluded
that women’s peace building is culturally and contextually based and
also noted that peace building includes gender-aware and womenempowering political, social, economic tools. I agree that peace
building should not just be about nations seeking to live peacefully
with each other for these nations are composed of human beings such
as young women who will have been mostly in the active front of the
different forms of violence. In this regard, peace building should be
noted, even when defining it at the UN level, as involving personal
and group accountability and reconciliation processes that contribute
to the reduction or prevention of violence. It should not be left to the
political players alone but should foster the ability of women, men,
girls, and boys to promote conditions of nonviolence, equality, justice,
and human rights for all people, and to build democratic institutions
and sustain the environment.
As such, it is important to understand that peace building and conflict
resolution strategies should include young women because they clearly
have a role to play by virtue of their unique experiences. They are young
and during conflict times may miss out on education, get raped, become sex slaves and suffer other forms of violence that need to be addressed when considering sustainable peace strategies. It is, therefore,
imperative for stakeholders to accept this and begin a process of development that will ensure young women’s involvement. Such involvement
may start with reconsidering the definition of peace building at various
levels and even with who defines the concept and to whose benefit.
Conflict resolution involves processes of ending a dispute or
disagreement between two or more people so that in the end, there
is cohesion, co-existence and trust. Conflict resolution involves the
techniques of eliminating sources of disagreements and the methods
include negotiation, mediation and diplomacy. When one reflects
on young people and their potential, it seems that many times, they
are viewed as having limited capacities to participate and interrogate
issues of conflict. Their ‘involvement’ ends at the most basic level such
as narrating who was involved in a conflict and how they experienced
the conflict. However, conflict resolution has to do with more than this
and involves techniques, methodologies, negotiation and diplomacy,
which the youth and young women in particular do not have given
society’s attitudes towards women’s intellectual capacity and also
young people’s perceived lack of wisdom and experience. Therefore,
this leads to the perceived incapacity for diplomacy and thus exclusion
of young women in processes of peace building.
Peace and conflict in Africa: a male affair
Africa has for long been viewed as synonymous with violent
conflict and political turmoil. Years of instability have left many
countries devastated and lagging behind on all indicators of human
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development. Given the history conflicts and wars on this continent,
the notions of peace building and conflict resolution are not new in the
African context. Virtually every country has experienced protracted
conflict, which intensified during the twentieth century due to the
growth of anti-colonial movements. These movements were largely
dominated by men. However, the last decade has seen important
shifts in the discourse about women and conflicts on the continent.
Firstly, war and conflicts are seen as expressions of deeply gendered
long-term dynamics that precede the conflict and persist long after
peace. This new look at conflict using a feminist lens – and analysing
gender violence as the expression of unequal gender dynamics that
are far more pervasive than specific instances of violence – seeks to
address the differential experiences of conflict across gender groups
in Africa. Taking this history into perspective, women are slowly
taking part in politics and we see that women in southern Africa are
beginning to engage in peacemaking, conflict resolution and peace
building processes in more ways than one.
However, women – particularly young women – are still not part of
formal peace negotiations and reconciliation meetings. Their voices
are usually heard during the various so-called ‘consultative processes’
that eventually lead to the peace settlements. A good example can
be seen from the Zimbabwean SADC-mediated transition process
where only one woman represented ‘women’, who make up over 52
percent of the population, during the mediation process. The voices
of young women were ‘included’ in whatever consultative processes
are assumed to have taken place before the negotiators met at the
table for the final settlement. It was also telling that although the
two conflicting parties (ZANU-PF and two MDC formations) have
women in very high positions in their executive structures, none of
them were visible at the negotiation table with the mediators. This
is a classic example of how even if women are in politics and hold
decision-making positions, when it comes to peace and conflict, the
tendency is to defer to men for solutions.
As I was reflecting on peace missions around the world, it occurred to
me that conflicts are as old as humans have walked the earth because
they are after all a part of the human life cycle. To try and understand
whether it is just chatter boxing or a reality that women can play
an effective role in peace building, I would like to point out a few
examples from Africa that illustrate women’s roles as peace builders
from an African traditional context.
Women building peace through positive childcare
Women play a major role in nurturing a child. It is through daily
childcare, education and interaction that a mother imparts key life
principles that the child will use as the foundation of living. Ndayiziga
(2003:18) observes that in the traditional Burundi context, it was
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primarily the mother that had responsibility for the upbringing of
the children and thus imparting useful life skills such as how to dress,
speak, eat, walk and sit (especially for girls) and even behave towards
other people to ensure co-existence. Such socialisation is important
because it somewhat determines the outcomes of a child where
values, morals and character are concerned. When a family is built,
women are the foundation and the fundamentals of learning and
values that ultimately lead to decency. There is a saying among the
Somali, which states that ‘mother is a school’. The Somalis say: ‘The
values with which children are brought up precede their actual birth’.
Before becoming adults, everyone attends a basic school, and that
school is mother (Mohammed, 2003:102). Through this important
mothering role, the culture of peace is entrenched in children as a
foundation for peaceful living in families, the community and the clan.
Nwoye argues that in the African traditional context, from early
childhood, each child was exposed to a variety of songs, stories,
proverbs and sayings directed by the mother or the aunt and
conveyed at the fireplace or after the evening meals, which aimed
at reducing conflict. She adds that the songs, stories, proverbs and
sayings contained simple but clear messages and moral teachings.
In some of the studies, it is suggested that African mothers in
such stories and songs tried to project to the children what they
expected of them as sons and daughters in family and community
relationships. The themes that generally run through such literature
expect the children to demonstrate responsibility through
reciprocity; honesty and loyalty through mutuality and deference;
and faith and compassion through inner strength and self-control.
They also focus on the importance of human living and mutuality,
and of consideration for others. According to some of the reports
there are many stories that talk of greed and individual interests as
major sources of conflict and the young men and women are warned
against them. Certain myths given to children in those days were
meant to emphasise the fact that avoiding war can sometimes be an
act of good leadership. Some stories also underscore the negative
aspects of conflict and hostilities so that these become a deterrent.
The Tanzanian study (Lihamba, 2003:115) particularly revealed
that Tanzanian women have always played a critical part in
maintaining equilibrium in their society by bringing up their children
as responsible members of the community. Women taught their
daughters and sons proper behaviour and the ethos of society, and
impressed on them the importance of honesty, uprightness and the
necessity to compromise. As such, women have always been active
promoters of harmony in the community, which can be referred
to as a culture of peace. In her view, this natural role of women is
not unique to any particular ethnic group in Tanzania, but rather is
generalised throughout the country thus fostering women’s role as a
strategic partner in peace building within communities.
Women as peace envoys
Mohamed A.M. (2003) argues that in some regions among the
Somali, older women who could no longer conceive and married
women were used as peace envoys (‘Ergos’), capitalising on their
neutrality and the privileges bestowed on them by Somali culture.
These Ergos had to possess a wide spectrum of qualities and
competencies, including a sense of responsibility, patience, good
personality, oratory abilities and decency. They had to be well versed
in customary law and were required to know exactly what the problem
was and what was at stake. They were a select group of individuals
of rare qualities. They were selected by leaders of the society and
had to shuttle between the warring parties as mediators, carrying a
message of peace and reconciliation. The Ergos helped both sides to
understand the source of the conflict and then eventually facilitate a
peace agreement. Looking at the contemporary world, these Ergos
played the same role that Thabo Mbeki played in the Zimbabwe crisis
in 2008 and Odinga in Ivory Coast. The question that then comes
to mind is how can women fail to mediate in various conflicts in the
world if they could be selected as Ergos in the Somali tradition and
were actually trusted enough to bring about a resolution and ensure
sustainable peace during this time?
Women’s role in consolidating peace pacts Ntahobari & Ndayiziga (2003) note that in traditional Burundi society,
women played both a passive and active role in peace building. For
example when there was a murder in a family, a female mediator was
quickly sent to the family of the victim to seek a solution (thus the
active role). When the two families agreed to meet and solve the
dispute, there would then be a ‘blood pact’ where a virgin would be
given as a form of reparation to the family of the deceased. Achebe
(1958) reported a similar cultural practice among the Igbo of Nigeria
and the Shona culture (‘kuripa ngozi’). The two families would then be
linked for life through the blood pact. Although such a practice is now
rejected in human rights circles, it was used as a form of consolidating
peace pacts in traditional Burundi society and women were at the
centre of such peace-building practices.
Women’s contribution to conflict mediation in
traditional Africa
Mathey et al (2003: 41) revealed that a fundamental fact of traditional
Central African societies was the sacred character of the respect
given to the elderly in general and to elderly women in particular. The
explanation is that, among the Zande, the oldest women of the clan
would go and meet the opposing clan to interpose themselves between
the fighters in order to make them see reason. When words proved
fruitless, the women would threaten to expose their nakedness or go
down on their knees. In either case, the gesture signified a curse for
those who bore the responsibility for such grave acts. Because of the
respect that the enemy soldiers had for the women, they would usually
put down their weapons before the fateful acts were accomplished.
Ntahokia (1978:26) notes in her studies that in order to strengthen
peace, Zambian customary law encourages women to uphold
principles that constitute the basic pillars underpinning the culture
of peace, and these include tolerance, respect for human rights and
equalities. She adds that the role of the young woman in conflict
management is not a new phenomenon in Zambia.
According to Ntahobari and Ndayiziga (2003:16), although
traditional Burundi society was organised and structured in ways that
encouraged cohesiveness and peaceful coexistence, from time to
time, like any other human society, it experienced conflict. Conflicts
arose between individuals, within a family, between different families
or between the inhabitants of different territories. They go on to
argue that to manage such conflicts, traditional society had wellorganised regulatory machinery in which women generally played a
major part. Under this system, a woman was recognised as having
a behind-the-scenes advisory role, mainly where her husband was
concerned, and as playing an active part in strengthening solidarity
and social harmony generally. Within this structure, women played the
more unobtrusive yet substantial role, both in their families and within
their own circle.
This particular role is often abused and quoted out of context for most
conflict interventions in contemporary Africa. Patriarchal men claim
that women ought to play a ‘behind-the-scenes role’, where they are
passively involved in peace processes without necessarily being in the
forefront. However, this is taken out of context as women can still play
an active role just as the old women, who held a sacred role in times
of conflict, did in the past. The following example may also be key in
dispelling such misconceptions.
Women’s contribution to conflict resolution:
Practices and rituals
According to a Somali researcher (Mohamed, 2003:103), women
in some parts of the country employed desperate measures to
stop inter- and intra-clan wars. They formed a human chain, lined
themselves up between the warring parties and refused to leave
until the two groups backed down. Their immediate objective was
to see to it that the two armies did not shoot each other. A related
objective was to bring in an alternative conflict resolution method
based on dialogue and peace. According to Mohamed, if in the thick
of a battle, a woman stepped in front of a man about to be killed,
that man’s life was spared. In this way, women played an active key
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role in saving the lives of those considered to be of high standing in
the community. This act often created an environment that enabled
the warring parties to settle their differences peacefully and to
establish good relations.
In South Africa, peacemaking has traditionally been the role of women.
In situations of war between groups, women were called to initiate a
cease-fire. The women would wear white chalks and walk in the middle
of warring parties. They would walk up to the offensive party and lay
an axe before them. The axe would be laid on the group or stuck on a
tree. Automatically the offensive party would cease to make war. The
cultural belief that woman are the peacemakers of the society are vital
cultural resources to draw on in order to assert ourselves as women and
especially young women in male-dominated political societies!
In Cameroon, a study underscored the fact that in traditional
African societies the first wife was sometimes invited to deliberate
with the men in the assemblies. As a woman in what were essentially
masculine fora, one of her tasks was to ‘soften’ sentences considered
to be too severe or which could lead to revolt or revenge. Similarly
almost all the other studies reviewed drew attention to the special
place in society afforded to paternal aunts in matters of crisis
management and conflict resolution.
Other key players in conflict transformation and peace building
in African traditional society include the Bakossi of Cameroon.
They valued the roles of paternal aunts or lineage daughters
(‘Umuada’ among the Igbo of Nigeria) who were responsible for
reconciling the individuals involved in a conflict. Other categories
of women played the same role in other societies. Hence, among
the Guidar of Cameroon, the Mazake (old women) played the role
of keeping watch over the community. They were on the alert and
reacted immediately at the first sign of destructive conflict between
the members of the community. If they noticed signs of conflict or an
insidious quarrel, they promptly summoned the protagonists in order
to question and calm them before sealing their reconciliation with a
kiss to celebrate peace.
Among the Bamileke of Cameroon, according to Ngongo-Mbede
(2003), the ‘Magne’ or mothers of twins, were considered to be
blessed by God. Their mission was, first of all, one of peace. The
arrival of a Magne in a place of conflict had the immediate effect of
stopping the hostile acts. Once in the midst of the confrontation,
she assumed responsibility for reconciling the belligerents. She
divided the ‘tree of peace’ into two and offered a piece to each of the
protagonists as a token of reconciliation. Twins themselves were seen
as trees of peace planted in the family. Therefore, her role consisted
in bringing everybody together, and considering everyone as her own
child. In every situation, she had to endeavour to restore the peace
required for the smooth functioning of the chiefdom. The ‘Mafo’ also
played the role of intermediary, in other words of mediator, between
the chief and his subjects. But to gain trust and respect, the Mafo had
herself to be just and to show integrity.
The above trends show that for so many years, the strategic role of
women in conflict resolution in contemporary Africa has continued to
be ignored. The current review suggests that this attitude is ill advised
since we have seen that in traditional African societies women’s
positive peace-building contributions were never in doubt. From what
the reviews suggest, it was indeed the women who led the way in
many conflict resolution processes in the Africa of yesteryear. These
revelations are again instructive. They draw attention to the great
potential for peace and reconciliation that African women possess for
the larger society.
References
Achebe, C. Things Fall
Apart London: Heinemann Educational
Publishers, 1958
Anderline, Sanam Naraghi. Women
Building Peace: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
Colorado, 2007
Anderlini, S. Women at the peace
table: Making a difference. New York:
United Nations Development Fund for
Women, 2000
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Anderson, S. ‘Women’s many roles in
reconciliation’. In H. van de Veen (Ed.),
People building peace: Inspiring stories
from around the world (pp. 230–236).
Utrecht: European Centre for Conflict
Prevention, 1999
Boutros Boutros-Ghali. ‘An Agenda
for Peace’ Preventive Diplomatic
Peacemaking and Peace Keeping
Document A\47\277, 17 June 1992(New
York Department of Information)
Heiki Becker. ‘The Role of Namibian Women
in Peace Building and Conflict Resolution
and Conflict Resolution’
Lederach, John Paul. Building PeaceSustainable Reconciliation in Divided
Societies”. Washington D.C United States
Institute of Peace Press, 1999
Lihamba, A. Women’s Peace Building
and Conflict Resolution Skills, Morogoro
Region, Tanzania UNESCO, Women and
It is important as feminists and development agents that we take
into account lessons like these from the traditional African context
and begin a process of inclusion where young women play an active
and equal role as strategic partners in establishing sustainable peace.
Wherever you are and whatever you do as a woman, see to it that
when it comes to conflict transformation, young women’s voices are
not lost in the heat of the moment but that they are actively involved
in making decisions that affect peace in the future. Women’s very lives
depend on women taking an active role in peace building.
Conclusion
Young women are often excluded from key peace processes as
the very definition of peace and the level at which this definition is
coined does not offer a process of inclusion for the young women.
Moreover, the perceived lack of capacity has led to them being left
out of key decision making after conflicts have ended. However,
from the traditional African context, many lessons can be drawn
on the active and passive roles that women played when it came
to ensuring sustainable peace. Such lessons can be a watershed
moment in determining the role that women, and young women
in particular, can play when it comes to conflict transformation.
Having digested this as development agents, it is important
that each of us, in our own little corner, ensure that we work
towards making the voices of young women heard so that they
may be identified and respected as strategic partners in building
sustainable peace in different communities, countries, regions and
the world at large. It is only when this realisation occurs that women
can make a meaningful difference in realising near normal lives
after the end of hostilities. It is then that a resounding ‘Yes’ will be
heard when questions around young women’s inclusion in peace
building processes are asked!
Grace Ruvimbo Chirenje is a young feminist leader from Harare, Zimbabwe. She is currently pursuing a Masters
in Leadership and Management (Africa Leadership and Management Academy) and also a Diploma in Theology
(Africa Christian and Theological School). Grace’s passion is community development and facilitation with a
special emphasis on young women and democracy, good governance and conflict transformation. Currently she
is the Director of Zimbabwe Young Women’s Network for Peace Building (ZYWNP). Grace volunteers her
time with Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, sits on the board of Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe and Centre for
Community Development in her efforts to contribute to the democratization process of Zimbabwe.
Peace in Africa (pp.111-131). Paris: UNSCO
Workshops, 2003
McKay, Susan. Women’s Meanings of Peace
building in Post-Apartheid South Africa,
Nursing, Women’s and International Studies
University of Wyoming
Mohamed A.M. The Role of Somali Women
in the Search for Peace. In UNESCO, War
and Peace in Africa (pp. 75-110). Paris:
UNESCO Workshops, 2003
Ntahobari, J., & Ndayiziga, B. ‘The
Role of Burundian Women in the
Peaceful Settlement of Conflicts’. In
UNESCO, Women and Peace in
Africa (pp.11-26), Paris: UNESCO
Workshops, 2003
UNESCO. ‘Women and Peace in Africa:
Case Studies on traditional conflict
resolutions practices’. Paris: UNESCO
Workshops, 2003
Nwoye, Miriam Agatha Chinwe. ‘Role
of Women in Peace Building and
Conflict Resolution in African Traditional
Societies: A Selective Review’
http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.
org/profiles/blogs/guide-to-ma-programin-peace"
Internet sources
www.genderlinks.org.za. BUWA! A Journal on African Women's Experiences
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Young women participation: The theory and the practice
Young women
participation:
The theory and the
practice
By Thatayaone Nnini
There is a vast difference between an adult accompanying a child to offer them advice, so
the child can choose and buy clothes for him/herself with money the child got from that same
adult, and an adult who takes a child along in order for the child to try on clothes that the
adult had already chosen for the child. Governments and ‘others’ in southern Africa do the
latter to young people in the region: they prove their commitments to protect and promote
youth participation through youth-focused policies and programmes, but do not let the
youth contribute towards the design and development of these policies and programmes.
Most social justice movements – including women’s movements – do not behave differently.
One good indicator is the absence of young women at various key strategic fora and
platforms inside and outside of the continent.
M
ore than six decades after youth
were integrated into the United
Nations system, and the UN General
Assembly recognised that young people
– in all countries – are a resource for
development and key agents for change, the
presence of youth in most fora is still largely
ceremonial and often an afterthought. As
such, programmes designed by adults leave
young people more as recipients instead of
active participants. (Kristy Evans, 2008).
There is a common view that the voices of
young people need to be listened to, and
I contend that having been spoken to for
all these years, the youth should now be
given a chance to speak – and a chance for
meaningful participation.
Tokenism in both government and the
women’s movement
Since the girl-child was identified as one
of the 12 Critical Areas of Concern at the
Beijing Platform of Action, most of our
governments (including mine in Botswana)
had no choice but to be seen to be doing
something about us. So, Botswana selected
girl children as a national critical area of
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concern. It is evident in policies that followed this period that there
was commitment (on paper) to make us young women a priority.
Since then, government departments and other organisations have
gone to great pains to prove to the world that they are indeed on
track in delivering this.
Similarly, women’s movements in the country also spoke about
making us a priority. I suppose it was against such a backdrop that
I and other young women were invited to some of the women’s
movement’s fora and events. Over the past 10 years, I have been
invited to fora where there would be a group of young women
participants – half of us wearing school uniforms so we could
easily be identified as youth representatives. And more often
than not, we would be seated at one separate table during the
meetings. The older women would occasionally intone: “Youth,
say something.” But what can you say when you are already being
treated like a special guest to an agenda that you had not been
part of developing?
My observation from most of those meetings was that young
women were often invited by older women, who did not have much
information about them. I have attended several such meetings. As
such, we would just sit though the meetings and not say anything.
The very few assertive ones – or those with research skills – would
later try and collect some information and try to participate, and in
most cases they would end up talking amiss.
I (and many others) have also attended various workshops,
seminars and conferences within our country over the past decade,
but I will share just a few of those experiences to illustrate my
frustration. A classic example was a conference to set an agenda
for the 2004 general elections in Botswana, which advocated for
at least 30 percent representation of women in decision-making
positions. During the group discussions, we were expected to make
contributions, but I ‘cleverly’ opted to document what was being
said. Not many young women spoke. There was a great sense
of inadequacy among the young women, and their voices were
silenced by this inadequacy, inexperience and inability to speak in
an ‘adult’ language. I then fully understood what Hudson (1994),
Gillian and Brown (1992), and Israel and Belle (2007) allude to when
they claim that young women are usually perceived as immature
and hence undermined, often resorting to silence. This is because
there is no effort to adequately nurture them, or at least bring
the discussions to a ‘language’ and discourse they understand.
This would definitely go a long way in helping the young women
appreciate and understand where the older women are coming
from and where they are hoping to go. If this very basic principle is
not observed, older women – who often talk of handing over the
torch – will eventually hand over to ill equipped successors!
And it does not matter whether youth issues are on the agenda
or not, the pattern is basically the same. It is not unusual to find
young people being invited to meetings discussing pertinent issues
like youth unemployment, HIV and AIDS, and other matters that
are at the centre of their lives, but the young people themselves
will be relegated to act as ushers, or assist with registration of the
participants. In most cases, we would do this registration, serving
tea and ushering wholeheartedly, hoping the adults could see that
we have potential, and maybe invite us next time as participants or
perhaps as panellists!
Often the selection of young women invited to participate is quite
telling. Less than two years ago, I attended a Beijing +15 preparatory
workshop in Gaborone, Botswana, where the youth were supposedly
‘represented’. It was the usual mix of the young uniformed ones and
those of us out of school. At lunch break, I discovered that most of
the youth representatives belonged to the same youth group – from
one of the Adventist churches in Gaborone – and had been invited by
one of the organisers and, as usual, had little knowledge of what was
going on and why they were invited. There was obviously no attempt
by the organisers to invite young women in their diversity to share
their experiences and hopes and dreams. I suppose the issue for the
older women was to tick the box and demonstrate that young women
were ‘represented’. In my conversations with other young women at
this forum, I realised that our frustrations were shared and although we
could have been sharing our concerns in these fora, we had no space
to do so as the programme was drawn up without any consultation
from us. Ironically, Beijing + 15 was in fact expecting a review on how
my county, Botswana, had fared in putting me as a girl-child at the
centre of development!
Any hope for meaningful participation
Having participated in the women’s movement in my country for
the past ten years, I have grown to accept that young women’s
participation in government and in the women’s movement will always
be haphazard and ineffective. I had looked for contrary indications but
had found none. The talk was always that young women should take
initiative, rise up and be responsible for their own development, which
for me was in itself a challenge. My personal experience of this was
contradictory. I believe that it is normal practice that before soldiers
can be sent out into the battlefield, they have to undergo rigorous
training, done in a systematic manner, organised and conducted by
experienced soldiers. Fully equipped, they can then be sent out on a
mission, and can perform under the leadership and guidance of more
senior soldiers. In the same manner, for any person to successfully do
any job they should have undergone some form of training, either at
some institution or on the job. It is important that young people be
given a chance to actually practice and perfect their skills. I believe it
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Young women participation: The theory and the practice
should be the same with young feminist activists. At continental and
international levels things seem more organised. But in my region, and
specifically my country, the situation is different. Even the presence
of long established organizations like Young Women’s Christian
Association (YWCA) Botswana, Women Against Rape and Emang
Basadi (which even has a youth programme called Emang Basetsana)
to mention a few, have not translated their practices into something
concrete for me and other young women. Meaningful young women’s
participation is thus very limited in the country.
Where young women have been given space, our engagement as
youth is beneficial. For instance, the Botswana Young Women and
Leadership programme participated at CIVICUS' World Assembly
held in Botswana, where we ran two workshops investigating the
major obstacles that young people (especially young women) are
facing in participating as active citizens, and how these can be
overcome. Numerous challenges were identified with respect to
civic participation – the most common one being the inability to be
understood and being unaware of critical issues. The participants
discussed their frustration at wanting to be active and engaged
citizens, against the reality of restrictions and having no space
to openly discuss and debate the issues affecting our lives. We
highlighted the need to establish a firm grasp of the political,
economic and social issues affecting us, in order to have a broader
analysis that will enable us to challenge the structural and institutional
discriminations that are inhibiting our active participation in society.
The young women identified numerous challenges they face on
a daily basis, including societal discrimination and social/cultural
constructions, which make it difficult to participate in their private
lives (family, relationships) and they identified that this spilt over
to the public sphere – where they want to be agents of change,
and yet struggle to find space to participate and be heard. Lack
of employment, poverty, violence and HIV and AIDS were also
highlighted as significant obstacles affecting youth development. But
one key concern identified was the ‘ghettoization’ of young people's
issues – and institutional structures that do not create space for the
inclusion of youth voices.
Light at the end of the tunnel
However, things do seem to be slowly changing now. In 2009, I took
part in a young feminist leadership course, which was a partnership
between the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)
and Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe. It was then that I – for the
first time – had a full understanding of where women’s movements
were coming from and the role that young feminists can play, and
this after I had been part of numerous workshops, conferences and
other fora that never sought to make my growth and understanding
part of the core agenda! There was a sharing of experiences and ideas
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between the young representatives from different African countries
and by the end of the course, we as young women had made some
commitments to each other and to ourselves on what we would do
in our respective countries. From the twenty young women who
attended the training, five of us had the opportunity to attend the
World AIDS Conference, which was in Vienna, Austria in July 2010. I
would say my participation at this forum was very different. I was more
confident. I knew the agenda. I knew how it affected me. I had been
prepared. I had been given the tools to locate myself on the agenda.
I discovered whilst in Vienna that my experience was not unique. Our
team confidently grabbed what little space we could in Vienna and
contributed to the ongoing discussions: whether it was in the small
rooms that were called ‘mini rooms’ or at the big hall that was called
‘the global village’, which was partitioned in such a way as to allow
different interest groups to have simultaneous discussions in the same
hall. Vienna also opened up my understanding of issues on lesbians,
gays, bisexuals, transgendered and intersex people and sex work, as
these stole the limelight at the conference. Advocates on these issues
were especially visible during the human rights march. It was a fulfilling
experience. I just wish that more young women had been present to
add their voices to this!
I was also not blind to the fact that most fora, which were supposedly
youth fora, were comprised solely of panellists from the global
North and Asia, and as such were not fully representative of young
women from around the world. It was even more eye opening when
we attended the youth evaluation session, to realise that our sisters
from the North knew each other by name, and regularly met and
networked prior to the conference in preparatory meetings. This was
a first for us as such opportunities are rare in our part of the world.
The whole experience taught me what can be possible. At the next
forum, southern African young women will be more organised and
we will be on the agenda!
Nurturing one another: a model that works
We have seen, we have experienced and we have learnt. As they say,
it is now time to act! Time for strategising has long passed, and the
initiative supported by OSISA for the young women’s network in
southern Africa is on track to respond to the gap in networking and
in opportunities for exchange for young women. As young women,
we often lament that we are not being provided with safe spaces to
articulate our issue and also about the lack of resources for strong
mentoring/support systems. However, I found the OSISA initiative to
be passionate about young women’s issues. The Vienna conference
provided a platform for young women in the network to get to know
each other better as well as to share dreams for the network. I also noted
that as emerging leaders, we still need a lot of mentoring, training and
support on leadership skills, so as to help us better serve Africa.
At a young women’s festival held in Harare, Zimbabwe in 2010,
we had another opportunity to nurture and nourish each other as
young women. From the exchange, it became clear to me – and
to others – that a lot of work by young women was happening in
some countries compared to others. Those who had done little
were motivated, as they heard what others had achieved so far. All
this was quite impressive as it was a systematic way of equipping
young women with skills, starting with the courses on feminism
from which to build a knowledge base. One of the strengths of
such a regional platform is that it brings together young women
from a wide spectrum of experience – some who are leaders in
their own right, others with experience of working in women’s
rights organisations or have some form of relationship with these
and other networks, who are university graduates and have
potential to contribute to the knowledge base through research
and through other forms.
At the same festival, dedicated workshops helped to enhance
participants’ ability to engage with the media, lobby, mobilise and
organise in various contexts such as conflicts as well as use information
and communications technology. I had an opportunity to be a
panellist on an inter-generational dialogue session at this festival. It
was quite interesting to actually participate in one since I had only
read about them and observed one such dialogue in the past.
My first opportunity to actually see such a dialogue session live at
any conference was at the Vienna AIDS conference and it was in
fact during one such inter-generational conversation at the AIDS
conference that it dawned on me that age and experience affect
an individual’s understandings and appreciation of issues, and that
there is a need for dialogue between older and younger people in
the women’s movements. Therefore, as we build movements, we
must not try and reinvent the wheel. As one of the ‘older’ participants
during the inter-generational conversation in Vienna commented,
“the greatest problem with young women is that we invest so much in
them, and once they fall in love, all the empowerment goes with it and
then we start afresh.”
For this reason, I think we need to broaden participation by young
women, to ensure that there is always a critical mass that will remain
committed to the cause and take leadership forward. There are
many lessons and skills we can learn – as young women – from
our older sisters and mothers and therefore we should not seclude
ourselves in small corners. Rather, we should reach out to older
women and tap into their wisdom. I fear that we see our older
sisters as not giving us safe spaces and not caring but I think we
need to shift our view so that we can learn from our older sisters
since nobody remains young forever. We will ourselves be the older
generation sooner rather than later!
Whatever fora exist in our countries, it is for us to join them. We must
lend our voices to the cause so that we can be heard. We should keep
our eyes open for opportunities to grow in leadership positions. A
significant number of institutes and programmes on young people’s
leadership development are emerging in our region. In December 2010,
I participated together with young men, at a course on citizen-focused
public policy, which was hosted by the Africa Institute and Freedom
House in Johannesburg. This is only one among several courses, which
are being run for young African leaders. It was encouraging that the
ratio of young women to young men at this course was balanced, giving
me much needed hope for a new breed of leadership (not just of men)
to rise from within the ranks in southern Africa!
Thatayaone Nnini is a young feminist
and a youth development enthusiast.
She is a teacher at Moshupa Senior
Secondary School in Botswana.
References
What are Young People Saying About the Barriers to Civic Education
http://www.awid.org/eng/Issues-and-Analysis/Library/What-areyoung-people-saying-about-the-barriers-to-civic-participation
The Voice Behind the speech: young Women in UN conventions
http://www.isiswomen.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=vie
w&id=725&Itemid=135
National Youth Policy - An important tool for the betterment of
Southern African Young People http://www.tigweb.org/youth-media/
panorama/article.html?ContentID=7164
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Cross-generational dialogue: Why it is critical to movement building
Cross-generational dialogue:
Why it is critical to movement building
By Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda
“We invite you to protect us, but
not smother us. Weep with us, but
do not pity us. Educate us, but do
not judge us. Include us, do not
patronize us. Give us space to make
our own mistakes. Listen to us.
Trust us. Respect us. Invest in us”1.
(World YWCA, 2009)
A
t the Young Women’s Christian Association
(YWCA) Middle East Regional Training
Institute in Egypt in May 2010, I facilitated a
roundtable on life aspirations with women from
across the generations. The questions were simple:
from the older women, we wanted to know what their
dreams were at the age of 16 and whether or not
they achieved their dreams – and if not, why not. For
women under the age of 30, we asked where they saw
themselves at the age of 70 and what it would take to
reach there. The stories made us laugh and cry. We
were deeply touched by the depth of suppressed pain,
anger and frustration carried by the older women,
especially those who had faced many gender-related
barriers and were abused, discriminated against and
lived with a great sense of injustice.
When asked what they wished for the younger
generation of women, the older women had two
reactions. On the one hand, they did not want their
daughters to have the same sad experiences they had
had and wanted a better life and more opportunities
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for young women. These older women were ready to fight for equality
and social and cultural change that empowered young women.
Other older women were resigned or accepted the status quo. “Our
grandmothers had similar experiences. We are happy even though
we are not what we would have wanted to be, and therefore the
young women should not complain, raise their voice or demand
something different. This is what life is about and as women we just
have to know that this is what will always be,” one woman said with
surprising conviction.
Confronted with these two radical views, and in the clear dialogue and
conversation with young women, something very profound happened.
The young women understood the basis of the older women’s
contradictory attitude because the older women were mirroring and
acting from their own experience, emotions and vulnerabilities. Selfawareness, individual liberation and empowerment were necessary not
only for the young women but also for the older women.
A new sense of bonding, solidarity and inter-generational sisterhood
was tangible in the room. As we held hands in the circle of power
and influence, the message was clear: women deserve freedom,
respect, opportunity and possibility, not only for themselves but also
as positive values and aspirations for posterity. We looked out over
the River Nile glistening in the moonlight, and felt that this group of
YWCA women, old and young, had just re-connected at a deeper
level – had just individually and collectively built another rung for
strengthening the women’s movement in their respective countries.
Dialogue: the oil that lubricates movements
The struggle for women’s rights and empowerment has unleashed a
long-standing social movement – usually referred to as the women’s
movement. However, such an agenda is not only confined to the many
strands of women organising for gender relations and social change
but to many other social movements around the environment, human
rights, poverty, and HIV and AIDS, which have integrated, applied,
included, adopted or mainstreamed a clear focus on advancing the
rights of women.
By definition, “social movements are change-orientated political
formations, often using tactics such as direct action, with loose and
informal organisational structures. They are organised around ideas,
which give the individuals who adhere to the movement new forms
of social and political identity. Therefore, the success of the feminist
movement does not depend just on various forms of political action,
but also on the way in which the ideas associated with the movement
led women, and ultimately men, to rethink hitherto accepted and
largely unchallenged notions about the roles of women in society.
They provide a means of introducing new ways of thinking into the
political agenda. However, their considerable potential political
displacement may be offset by internal divisions over goals, strategies,
and tactics, as in the case of the environmental movement. Partial
achievement of the movement's goals may remove much of its
dynamic energy, as in the case of the civil rights movement, or the
movement may be overtaken by shifts in social and political attitudes,
as in the case of the student movement of the late 1960s. Social
movements may become institutionalised, as in the case of the British
‘labour movement’, a term which remains a useful umbrella for the
Labour Party, trade unions, cooperatives, and socialist organisations,
but no longer conveys a sense of a dynamic force seeking radical
change”. (Wyn Grant)
The women’s rights and feminist movement qualifies as a social
movement in that it is grounded in the redefinition of power and
social relations. It seeks change not only in cultures, practices and
behaviours that attribute a lower status to women in society but
also aim to empower women as change agents, with the voices,
resources, opportunities and capabilities to enjoy their rights and
sustain the transformative agenda. If the ultimate goal of the women’s
movements is to transform society, through long-term social,
structural, behavioural and policy change to ensure equality of men
and women, then of necessity the movements need to be broadbased and create space for inter- and cross-generational approaches,
not only for the benefit of the individual women, young women and
girls but for the long-term social change they seek to achieve.
Currently feminist and women’s rights movements in southern
Africa have not identified many spaces and platforms for crossgenerational dialogue that strengthens and keeps these movements
vibrant. A number of reasons are often advanced for this gap, such
as depoliticisation of the feminist agenda and gender mainstreaming
programmes versus movements for women’s rights.
Women’s traditional social networks
Inter-generational conversations have been a long tradition in African
and other cultures to transmit critical information, advice, insights
and other tit-bits of life. This would happen between aunt and niece,
mother and daughter or grandmother and granddaughter. It is with
nostalgia that elders in many communities bemoan the dying culture
that – in modern terms – was about safe spaces for feminist dialogues
and social engagement. New programmatic terms have evolved and
exotic terms like mentorship or internship are used, and yet the core
essence remains – the sharing of skills and expertise across generations.
In the Shona tradition, girls and young women had their own hut
‘nhanga yevasikana’, a safe place for meeting, knowledge sharing, peer
education and mentorship, while men and boys met ‘padare’. These
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were inter-generational and single gender spaces for social engagement
and passage of knowledge from one generation to another.
Today we have new forms of spaces and family structures. The
spaces for building a cohesive movement for knowledge sharing
and transformation are shifting. The agenda is also much bigger
than individual empowerment of a girl or woman. It has grown to a
broader movement for social justice and for engaging and questioning
patriarchy’s inherent positioning of male power and knowledge as
superior (thus attributing more opportunities, resources and power to
boys and men).
The women’s rights and feminist movement has emerged as the
space for solidarity and sisterhood and for strategic caucusing and
positive action to deal with the structural causes of gender inequality
and women’s subordination. This is a long-term agenda that has
taken centuries of women’s organising, from the days of the formation
of such movements as the first YWCAs in 1855 and others before
it to the current celebration of the establishment of UN Women –
the United Nations agency dedicated to gender equality and the
empowerment of women.
Strengthening and sustaining women’s organising for human
rights and empowerment calls us to embrace inter-generational
approaches. Gender inequalities are embedded in intra-generational
discriminations, whose impacts may reveal themselves many years
or decades later. There is ample evidence about how the denial of
education to girls has direct long-term implications for women’s
livelihoods, choices and options in life.
Levelling of space: Dealing with power and hierarchy
In the last three years, the World YWCA placed significant emphasis
on developing methodologies for real time inter-generational
dialogues around critical and topical issues. During the 2009 Liberia
Colloquium on Women’s Leadership for Peace, Security and
Development, the World YWCA held an inter-generational dialogue
with around 100 young women as well as Mary Robinson, the former
President of Ireland, Mary McPhail, the Executive Director of the
World Alliance of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, and a female chief
from Ghana. The dialogue was facilitated by the World YWCA
president and a young Liberian woman. By creating an opportunity for
the real exchange of ideas and feelings, the space was welcoming to
all – irrespective of power.
However, at first, there was a very strong awareness of the position
and power of the older women. But as the conversations continued,
the older women ceased to be consciously ‘your excellencies,
honourables, chiefs and madams’. The flow of the dialogue shifted
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more to ‘sister, grandmother, neighbour and friend’. It was a process
of social levelling, a recognition that women of all generations are
individuals first, and should not only be defined by, or related to,
on the basis of power or position. The content of the conversation
became more sincere and less clothed in political rhetoric,
moralisation and talking-down by the elders.
The younger women also recognised that they could have a direct and
respectful conversation on critical issues with people in power without
being overly polite and restrained with their feelings. The older
women leaders were not just defined by their high social or political
positions but were treated as equal citizens. This was a moment of
real bonding, building true trust and a shared commitment that the
women’s rights agenda is a personal, political and collective one.
There was also a deeper recognition by the older generation that young
women and girls are a crucial constituency for securing women’s rights
and empowerment. There is limited space for mutually respectful social
dialogue between the older, adult and socially established women
and the girls and young women within the women’s rights movement.
Spaces that allow for such bonding and a deeper level of intergenerational connection are very rare on our continent.
Many young women expressed concern that in mixed age groups,
they are treated just as ‘daughters’ and ‘juniors’, and not as leaders.
Their perspectives and voices should be judged on experience and
expertise. Some shared that their own diversity is not sufficiently
visible or acknowledged. “We come in our diversity: rural and urban;
young mothers; leaders with disabilities; survivors of violence; living
positively with HIV and AIDS; in and out of school; employed and
unemployed; entrepreneurs and innovators; married, widowed,
separated, divorced and single…” (World YWCA, 2009), but this
reality is hardly ever acknowledged.
Many older women in mixed groups with younger women similarly felt
that they were being judged – as conservative, old fashioned and not
‘cool’ enough. They were considered to be overly protective and too
determined to transmit their own lived experiences as the standard for the
younger women. Recognising this gap, it is therefore essential to create a
safe, inclusive and empowering space for cross-generational dialogues as
a methodology of strengthening interaction, analysis, interventions and
programmes related to women’s human rights, and on a fundamental
level, for building a stronger movement for women’s rights.
Sisterly giggles accompany dialogues on sexual and
Discussing sex and sexuality is the most difficult conversation as it is
often embedded in taboos, cultural norms and social expectations.
There is also the assumption that once a person is HIV positive
they lose, or should lose, their sexuality and sensuality for the
sake of their and others’ survival.
Young women seeking friendly and empowering information
are often afraid and hesitant to ask older women. At the same
time, older women are at times ill equipped to offer advice in an
empowering and supportive way without overly moralising and
intimidating. When the subject comes up, both old and young
women often resort to ‘sisterly giggles’ that say we understand what
we have to talk about but we do not have a safe and supportive
space to navigate the intricacies of the subject!
In the last three years, the World YWCA has held global intergenerational conversations on HIV and sexual and reproductive
health and rights, including at the International AIDS Conference
for Asia and Pacific, the 2010 International AIDS Conference and
the UN Commission on the Status of Women. We had young
women from all regions participating in the dialogues and some
senior women like Thoraiya Obaid, former Executive Director of
UNFPA, Nafis Sadiki, UN Special Envoy on HIV and AIDS in
Asia, Elizabeth Mataka, UN Special Envoy on HIV and AIDS in
Africa, and Mary Robinson. I enjoyed moderating these sessions
and observing the social dynamics and the ultimate move from
very technical conversations to a shared emotional level of common
self-awareness, where a new language and understanding, and the
mutual commitment to sustain the struggle for women’s sexual and
reproductive health and rights were developed. ‘Our Bodies: Our
Rights’ became one of the shared mantras.
Navigating faith, culture and related issues to male control over
women’s bodies, the conversation comes alive as girls and women
strive together to discuss these oft-skated-over issues. Topics such
as female genital cutting and the social norms through which male
power is exercised are also openly and freely discussed in such
spaces. However, one can feel the tension in discussions around
sexual and reproductive health and rights for young women living
positively with HIV, and who like most other people want to have
a partner and create a family with love and respect. There is an
unsaid expectation that since sexual intercourse is the main route
through which people get infected with HIV then those that are
infected should not keep on having sex because they will pass on
the infection. There is also the assumption that once a person is
HIV positive they lose, or should lose, their sexuality and sensuality
for the sake of their and others’ survival. However, women are first
and foremost ‘whole’ women despite their HIV status. Therefore,
dialogue should centre on promoting responsible and good sexual
and reproductive health and behaviour for all young women
regardless of their status rather than looking with magnifying glasses
at those who are HIV positive
One of the joys in such YWCA dialogues has been the continued
collective effort to give a feminist theological interpretation to the
Bible and other religious texts. In one such session, there was a very
powerful exploration of the inter-generational encounter of Mary the
Mother of Jesus, a young pregnant woman, who visited Elizabeth (the
mother of John the Baptist), an older woman who was also pregnant.
They stayed together for three months, and one can imagine the
conversations that happened during that visit about relationships,
childcare, and social stigma for a young unmarried girl and an older
woman having a baby. They could empower, mentor and nurture each
other because they had a safe space to be together and navigate the
sensitive issues in their lives. I love this story.
Principles for cross-generational dialogue
How best can our region and continent enhance and support crossgenerational dialogue in the feminist and women’s movements?
A number of principles are key to providing the glue that keeps
women of different age groups as part of a collective with strong and
sustained commitment to each other and to the cause that brings
them together.
Firstly, the quality of the space for dialogue must be respectful and
empowering. A true cross-generational dialogue must create the
freedom, space and opportunity for each person to reflect from the
perspective of their own culture as defined by age and context. “Each
generation from the other is different and each one brings another
culture. This dialogue today is very important. In UNFPA, we know
it’s important to establish inter-generational dialogues at country
and local levels to close the gap existing between generations,” said
Thoraya Obaid as she opened the Inter-generational Conversation
hosted by UNFPA and World YWCA in 2010.
Secondly, genuineness and sincerity are key. Transcending tokenism
is crucial in building a real social and political movement on women’s
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rights. This demands that there is a critical mass of young women as
advocates, champions and leaders of women’s rights, advocating for
issues of all women, including adolescents and girls. Mary Robinson
also shared her dreams for young women in the future. “We have
tokenism in the women’s movement and we need to get over it. I want
by 2015 that we are not in the position of girls having a lack of voice, a
lack of choices and a lack of power.” (CSW 2010)
Thirdly, managing power within the women’s movements is very
important. Shared transformative leadership across generations
is critical to managing power. In conducting cross-generational
dialogues, it is important for women of different generations to
moderate and facilitate these conversations as well as those among
participants. In preparing for the dialogue at the Vienna AIDS
Conference in 2010, I was confronted many times by the request to
have high-level women leaders as facilitators. Such a criteria would
have obviously marginalised young women.
Lastly, opportunities to dialogue on sensitive issues need to
be created. Cross-generational dialogues must include crucial
conversations on important shared issues such as violence against
women, sexuality, education, early marriage, reproductive health and
rights, and leadership cultures. It is evident that this range of issues
requires a stronger closing of the gap on understanding the different
dimensions and aspects as informed by each generation.
During the Regional Training Institute for the YWCAs in Egypt,
a dialogue on women’s leadership and volunteering showed the
different values that young and older women place on technology
and community service. For older women, social involvement was
part of giving back to the community and accessing supportive
social networks, while for the many young women, it was about skills,
growing knowledge and self-confidence and creatively using social
media as a social community contribution.
The above are just some of the examples that show the importance
of inter-generational dialogue to knowledge and experience
exchange, movement building through diversity, and fostering a
sustained approach to address cultural norms and values.
Conclusion
We cannot underestimate the need to interrogate how older and
younger generations are conversing, exchanging ideas and building
a movement such as the feminist movement which, like other social
movements, thrives on debate and critical thinking. We can also
not pretend that the context and challenges have not shifted in
form and nature, and insist on doing things like we did decades ago.
The women’s and feminist movements should prioritise spaces and
platforms for cross-generational dialogue if their movements are to
remain vibrant and effective.
Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda is an advocate for women’s rights and peace with justice, with over twenty
years of experience with the UN and civil society. She is the current General Secretary of the World
YWCA and also founder of Rozaria Memorial Trust. She was one of the 2010 Nominees for Head of UN
Women, and serves on the boards of many civil society organisations, including Save the Children-UK,
Action Aid International, Gender at Work, Global Coalition on Women and AIDS and CIVICUS. She is
also a member of the UN Civil Society Advisory Group on 1325, African Women Leaders on Sexual and
Reproductive Health, and Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association.
Endnote
1. Extract from Young Women Statement
prepared by the World YWCA and delivered
by Ms. Latoya Smith at the International
Colloquium in Liberia, March 2009
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The Southern African Young
Women’s Festival launched!
By Mary Mutupa Introduction
From the moment I stepped into the Crowne Plaza Monomotapa
Hotel in Harare on 24 October 2010, I knew without a doubt that
I was in for a great time! The excitement, the energy, the vibrancy
that greeted me assured me that my decision to apply for this event
was not a mistake. I knew I was in the right place. I am sure many
young women would have paid any amount of money to be part of
this inaugural experience. Young women from 10 different countries
coming together to share experiences and learn from one another
is not usual in our region. In fact, it was the first time that a festival
specifically for young women and organized by young women
themselves had ever been held in southern Africa! It was awesome
to see and experience so much energy in the same space, and the
results were explosive, literally speaking!
F
or those of you who may have missed
the news of this festival, I am talking
about the Southern Africa Young Women’s
Festival 2010, an initiative developed as part
of the Young Voices Campaign (see Tsitsi
Mukamba’s article in this Issue for details on
the campaign) part of which includes capacity
building and mentoring for young women
between the ages of 18 and 30 from Botswana,
the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho,
Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland,
Zambia and Zimbabwe. The young women’s
voices initiative is a strategy to build strong
women’s movements at the national and
regional levels to ensure the sustained
articulation and defence of women’s rights
across the region.
The festival was designed to be a platform
for young women to share experiences,
ZIMBABWE
network, celebrate and expand their
horizons and, most importantly, mobilise
for transformation – as well as provide
a space for young women to express
themselves and learn from each other
(and from invited seasoned feminists).
The festival also showcases activities
and initiatives by young women in their
respective countries. The organisers
hope that this initiative will help mobilise
and galvanise young women into a loose
regional network of young feminists who
can contribute towards the women’s
movements in their respective countries
and also in the region.
as well as free networking; and on the hand,
structured training workshops on key skills
that assist with practical ‘how to’ notes of
activism. The 2010 festival ran particularly
useful workshops on advocacy and lobbying,
digital storytelling, engaging with the media,
working in contexts of conflict and how
to effectively contribute towards peace
building strategies and efforts as well as
transformative leadership.
In order to effectively empower participants,
the festival adopted a two-pronged strategy:
on one hand providing space for learning
and exchange in plenary and small groups
I personally attended the advocacy and
lobbying, and conflict resolution and peace
building workshops. I picked these because
– even though I do not come from a country
at war – I believe it is crucial to explore and
learn more about issues related to conflict
resolution and peace building. And I was
right. By the time the workshop ended, I had
started questioning the nature of conflict and
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The Southern African Young Women’s Festival launched!
specifically conflicts around diseases such as HIV and AIDS, which
are slowly becoming more prevalent in my country. I was concerned
especially with the conflict related to information about HIV and
AIDS and treatment among teenagers who have been born with
HIV and have been on antiretrovirals (ARVs) since childhood. Most
of these teenagers have not been told the truth about the drugs they
have been taking every day. Poor young people have not only been
infected but also are also caught up in a web of confusion. Some of
these young people are told that the drugs they take are vitamins.
You can imagine the distorted information they are growing up with?
This story is reality in Zambia. The reason why I started
questioning conflict in the context of HIV and AIDS was to
find better ways for the media to deal with the distribution of
information around ARVs and for families to respond in more
appropriate ways to young people living with HIV and AIDS. To
this extent, I found the workshop on conflict resolution and peace
building very helpful, as I have been able to apply this knowledge
to my own country context. I gained so much insight into what
causes conflict and how to go about resolving conflicts. Other
things I learned included information about conflict early warning,
mapping and issues of transitional justice. There is no doubt that
the knowledge acquired through this training will go a long way in
helping me understand what is at play each time I hear of a place
that is engulfed in conflict.
In addition to the workshops, other activities such as panel
presentations on selected topics, talk shows, performances
(drama, poetry, song and dance), dialogues as well as debate
sessions were excellent opportunities for exchange and learning
for the young women. The show also examined the linkages
between culture, religion and society, which suppress openness
about women’s sexuality.
The other key activity was the launch of the 16 days of Activism
campaign. This turned out to be a beautiful and emotional occasion,
which highlighted the fact that there are many women who have lost
their lives due to violence. Luta Shaba delivered a challenging speech
to mark the launch of the 16 days of Activism Campaign and paid
tribute to women who had fought for, and defended, women’s rights.
She shared her experiences around her book entitled Secrets of a
woman’s souls, which seeks to expose the layered violations against
women. Participants observed a moment of silence to honour all
women who had died due to violence. Sharon Chileshe, who cofacilitated this session with Luta Shaba, dedicated a speech about the
need for women to stand together against all forms of violence. There
was a candle lighting ceremony, which sealed the spirit of the occasion
by challenging women to keep the fire burning against violence
against women.
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STRUCTURES OF VIOLENCE: DEFINING
THE INTERSECTIONS OF MILITARISM AND
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Presented by Sharon Chileshe to launch the 2010 16 Days of
Activism Campaign
To our sisters who have gone through abuse:
Mental abuse
Emotional abuse
Spiritual abuse
Sexual abuse
Physical abuse of any kind
WE SALUTE YOU!
To our sisters, daughters, mothers, aunties, grandmothers,
friends, workmates…
WE SALUTE YOU!
In the fight against gender injustice,
LET US STAND TOGETHER!
In advocacy against domestic violence,
In the fight against sexual violence, human trafficking and
slavery in conflict situations, LET US STAND TOGETHER!
In strengthening the voice of young women and girls in Africa
and the world, LET US STAND TOGETHER!
In protection against silencing women’s rights defenders,
We dedicate this year’s 16 Days of Activism Campaign to you,
our sisters:
To raise awareness on what our sisters are going through
To train young women warriors to defend our rights
In sending out our message in creative ways thorough poetry,
art and dance
To engage policy makers and take action to support survivors
I AM UNIQUELY AND WONDERFULLY MADE,
WE ARE TRUELY WOMEN AFTER GOD’S HEART!
By the end of the speech, all sisters echoed ‘LET US STAND
TOGETHER’ and the light had spread throughout the room. This
was the light of hope – hope for a better tomorrow; hope that young
women will live a life free of violence; hope that our sisters in Congo
would live a life without fear – for there is light at the end of the tunnel
with all sisters working and standing together in the fight against all
forms of violations.
This was followed by a touching Poem from Jennyfer Tamba from
Congo in French and translated below:
JE N’AI PLUS
I HAVE NO MORE
Je n’ai plus de voix
Je n’ai plus d’honneur
Je n’ai plus de valeur
Je n’ai plus de joie
I have no more voice
I have no more honour
I have no more value
I have no more joy
Je n’ai plus d’avis
Je n’ai plus de vie
Je n’ai plus d’envie
Je n’ai plus de puix
I have no opinion
I have no life
I have no urge
I have no more power/strength
Je n’ai plus de larmes
Je n’ai plus d’ame
Je n’ai plus de flamme
Je n’ai plus rien d’une femme
Hier desire
Aujourd’hui violentee
Demain troumatisee
Mon corps est laminee
I have no heart
I have no soul
I have no more flame
I am no more a woman
Yesterday you desired me
Today you violate me
Tomorrow you traumatise me
My body is stripped
Je n’ai plus de sexualite
Je n’ai plus d’integuite
Je n’ai plus de feminite
Je n’ai plus de personalite
I have no sexuality
I have no more integrity
I have no more femininity
I have no more personality
Je veux vivre
Je veux rire
Je veux renaitre
Je veux etre
I want to live
I want to laugh
I want to recover/be reborn
I want to be
Why a Space for Young Women?
In a region such as ours, the urgency and need to develop and harness
young women’s agency into women’s movements cannot be over
emphasised. We are currently inhabiting a region that is shouldering
numerous challenges, including high levels of HIV and AIDS, increasing
levels of poverty, especially among women, increasing inequality and
reproductive health challenges – such as high numbers of unsafe
abortions and discrimination attached to accessing contraceptives – as
well as gender based violence, unemployment, high illiteracy levels and
many others. For this reason, women’s movements in the region need
urgent strategies to increase their agency and widen their constituency
base and enhance and sustain energy levels to challenge, demand and
protect gains in women’s rights. The festival offered a great opportunity
for young women to get exposure through exchange and by sharing
their challenges with their peers in order to develop strategies on how
to support and mobilise each other by contributing towards efforts to
address these challenges.
Some people have questioned the rationale for such a space exclusively
for young women – the argument being why not bring all youth
together or (if not all youth) women across the generations to such a
space. The reality is that there is a dearth of such safe spaces for young
women in the region to share their own experiences and learn from
and encourage each other to engage in activism that transforms their
communities. Youth-related spaces are often dominated by young men
at political and social levels, and these hardly create platforms for young
women to speak about issues that affect them. Yet the challenges
of society in both the public and private spheres affect women
disproportionately, and young women the most. For that reason, it is
important to create spaces such as the festival for young women.
Another argument often used against such spaces is that young
women lack experience and therefore cannot manage such a space
without the input and guidance of older women in the movement and
other ‘stakeholders.’ It’s important to understand that young women
may not have comparable experience but they surely have great ideas,
potential and dreams that need a safe space to be unleashed and to
be realised. As the festival brings together young women from across
the SADC region, it means that there is diversity in terms of culture,
both in personal and in work experiences. The festival is a perfect
platform for promoting open societies because of its focus on building
a culture of human rights and accountability. As young women share
in these ideas and dreams, a space like the festival is open to crossfertilisation of ideas that contribute towards developing strategies that
strengthens activism in a more structured manner.
With themes focusing on the key issues affecting women generally,
and young women in particular, spaces such as the festival will help
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The Southern African Young Women’s Festival launched!
young women to learn and share ideas across geographical boundaries,
and to develop shared strategies that may include joint lobbying and
advocacy for regional policy frameworks that could be adopted and
adapted at national levels. At the 2010 festival, for instance, there was
a session dedicated to debating the value that a dedicated SADC
Protocol on young women’s development might add to the regional
women’s rights protection framework. While some young women
argued for advocating for a SADC Protocol on Young Women’s rights
as the best route to take, others argued that this was not strategic since
SADC did not have a good record for translating such instruments
into action. Therefore, this debate session was not just a platform to
challenge young women to think about the policy and legal frameworks
in their countries and region, but it also exposed the young women to
debating skills – the need to respectfully disagree and to express one’s
own opinion in a non-violent manner. Such skills are critical in a region
where there is a culture of intolerance and the tendency is to view
dissenting ideas and opinions as personal attacks.
that anyone walking into the space would have thought that the
young women had been living together for years! There was a sense
of bonding in a very short amount of time. Although differences in
language were a barrier, the young women managed to find a way to
interact as most of them tried hard to learn some phrases in English,
French and Portuguese!
The other important thing to note is how spaces like the festival can
be used for promoting solidarity among young women in the region.
For instance, participants at the 2010 festival developed country action
plans and committed themselves to working closely and supporting
each other in their shared efforts and challenges. The festival provided
an opportunity for organising joint initiatives aimed at eliminating
injustices that women suffer. The solidarity chant and slogan ‘Sister,
Sister!’ with an echo ‘Sister!’ summed up this feeling and sense of
solidarity and sisterhood that permeated the festival. Young women
planned joint campaigns around violence, early marriages, access to
sexual reproductive health services and sound policies such as those
related to improving the economic status of women or improving
women’s health. Country plans were birthed and shared and ideas
were even discussed about the possibility of developing these further
into region-wide initiatives. In other words, the Southern Africa Young
Women’s Festival has the potential to become a strong contributor to
movements fostering social justice for women.
The festival is also a space for fostering young women’s leadership.
While it is true that leaders are born, it is also factual that leaders can be
made. Creating spaces where young women gather to share not just
experiences but – most importantly – ideas and strategies, is critical as it
helps to nurture their leadership qualities. Indeed, this initiative is a good
example of nurturing leadership among young women.
Maria de Luides, Villa de Manica, Coordinator, Mozambique.
A life changing experience
Solidarity sealed
I believe that the 2010 Southern African Young Women’s Festival
marked a new era in young women’s activism in the region. Amazingly,
there was so much unity amongst the participants during the forum
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The success of this inaugural event is best summed up in the
statements of some of the participants, who appreciated the utility of
such a space:
“I hope this festival is not the first and last. This needs to be a
sustainable project where young women can express themselves, share
experiences and learn from each other,”
Anny Modi, Coordinator Congolese Women in Action, DRC.
“I have been capacitated and I look forward to helping other women
who do not have the opportunity to be here to be aware of their rights,”
The future
It is refreshing to know that this was not a once-off event and plans
for the 2011 festival are already underway. In the true spirit of building
a regional network, the hosting of the festival will rotate through all
countries in the region. The 2011 event will be held in Lusaka, Zambia
in October.
The African Women Millennium Initiative Zambia (AWMIZ) working
together with young women activists in Zambia, will organise and host
the Festival. Be sure not to miss it!
Concluding recommendations
Knowing how easy it is to lose good ideas, I wish to propose the
following actions to ensure that the vision of a strong and vibrant
young women’s movement in the SADC region is kept alive:
• Ownership – There is need to foster ownership of the project
among young women. It is important that young women come up
with a clear and concrete strategy to ensure that ownership of the
project is assumed by networks at country or regional levels;
• Sustainability - There is a need for young women to build on the
initiatives and form regional level and country level structures for
sustainability purposes. These could include organizations in each
country that continue the mentoring and coaching initiated during the
festival as well as assist young women to implement the action plans
they hatched during the festival. Such structures would also be helpful
in pairing up older women and younger women at country level for
continued support and mentoring;
• Resources – Strategies need to be developed for mobilising
resources to help young women source technical and financial
assistance so they can translate their ideas into action. The organisers
to keep in mind that it is one thing to urge young people to develop
action plans and another to have these plans implemented. And,
therefore, it is vital to start thinking of ways of ensuring that young
women do get access to the financial resources that may be needed to
realise their action plans; and,
• Platform for sharing success stories – There is a need to expand
the, and create more, platforms for sharing success stories by young
women. Such platforms could include publications (e.g. magazines)
created to specifically capture their stories.
It is evident that the festival is a great space for young women, as it
does not only focus on training the young women, but it also allows
them to showcase their work and celebrate being young activists.
The first edition of the festival is a clear example of capacity building
combined with celebration. As the Southern Africa Young Women‘s
Festival is still in a growing stage, it is a perfect time to ensure that the
accurate foundation is established.
While creating spaces for young women, it is important to ensure
the full participation of young women in designing the activities and
facilitation. Although young women may not have many years of
experience, if they have the knowledge, they should be given a chance
to put their knowledge into practice. For example, forum spaces within
the Southern Africa Young Women Festival should ensure that young
women are not only brought in to learn and share their stories but that
they should also be given the opportunity to facilitate workshops and
panel discussions. Doing this will encourage and inspire confidence in
the young women.
The created spaces within the festival should ensure that generational
diversity is recognised and encouraged within various activities.
By doing so, it will promote confidence in the said generations to
bring out issues as they are. Such an approach will also assist in
understanding the extent of challenges faced across generations.
I hope this festival is not the first and last. This
needs to be a sustainable project where young
women can express themselves, share experiences
and learn from each other
Mary Mutupa is a human rights activist and currently works for the African Women Millennium Initiative in
Zambia as the National Coordinator. In the past 10 years she has worked in an array of civil society sectors on
various issues ranging from health, human rights, policy analysis and youth & development. She has international,
regional and national work experience in HIV/AIDS, Reproductive Health and Human Rights.
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Reflections on feminist solidarity in southern Africa
Reflections on feminist
solidarity in southern Africa
By Hleziphi Naomie Nyanungo (PhD)
Introduction: an invitation
It began with what seemed like an ambitious invitation at the time. We were invited to go to Bukavu
to join many other women in a march against rape and other forms of sexual violence in the east of the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on October 17, 2010. The invitation was extended by participants
from the DRC to participants from nine other different countries who were attending a feminism
workshop held in Mutare, Zimbabwe. It seemed like an ambitious invitation for all of us to go to the DRC
to participate in the march. However, with a little creativity, it turned out that we could indeed join the
march in Bukavu. But instead of us all going to Bukavu, we could march wherever we were.
A
nd that is precisely what we did at Africa
University campus, a private, pan-African
University located in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands.
A group consisting of staff and students organised
a march against rape and other forms of sexual
violence. The campus march was held on October 20,
2010 as an expression of solidarity with the women
who were marching in Bukavu. United by the cause,
and committed to supporting the efforts of others, we
made a public statement against sexual violence and
commemorated victims and survivors of this violence.
The experience of organising and participating in this
solidarity activity affirmed for me the importance
of solidarity in the feminist movement. Solidarity is
indeed the essence of ‘sisterhood’ and is the core of
efforts to fight against injustice. The aim of this paper
is to share some of my lessons and reflections about
solidarity drawn from this experience. The paper
begins by looking at what is meant by the concept
of solidarity, specifically feminist solidarity. This is
followed by a discussion about factors that influence
the level of feminist solidarity in southern Africa,
and suggestions for how to improve and strengthen
feminist solidarity in the region.
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Feminist solidarity as political solidarity
Solidarity is one of those words that is used in many different ways.
Depending on the context, solidarity may be used to refer to feelings
of harmony or support towards another or team spirit. At times,
solidarity is used to mean expressions of sympathy or the sharing
of some human experience. In spite of (or perhaps because of) its
frequency in usage, the concept of solidarity is not easy to define.
I have found the work of Sally Scholz (2008) to be instructive in
attempting to define the concept of solidarity. According to Scholz,
solidarity is a form of unity that moves people to action. There are
many types of solidarity but Scholz asserts three characteristics that
are salient. The first characteristic of solidarity is that it mediates
between an individual and a community. Through solidarity, an
individual is connected to a community, and the community exists
because of these individuals. The second characteristic of solidarity
is that it is a form of unity, something that binds people together.
The third defining characteristic of solidarity is what Scholz refers
to as “positive moral obligations” (Scholz, 2008). The idea of moral
obligations entailed in the notion of solidarity means that there are
duties that need to be fulfilled in any expression of solidarity. With
these three characteristics, solidarity is summed up to be “a form of
unity that mediates between individual and community and entails
positive duties” (Scholz, 2008).
Expanding on her theory of solidarity, Scholz (2008) presents three
classifications of solidarity: social, civic and political. Social solidarity
refers to group cohesiveness. Thus, when one feels a sense of
connectedness to others merely on the basis of some shared group
identity, one is experiencing social solidarity. This kind of solidarity
is exhibited in forms of unity that are motivated by a sense of
responsibility or obligation to people in the same group. It is social
solidarity when one’s actions towards another are motivated by group
membership, for example family, church or club.
Civic solidarity, in contrast, pertains to the relationship between
citizens within a political state. As explained by Scholz (2008), civic
solidarity “is the idea that society has an obligation to protect its
members through programmes that ensure that adequate basic needs
are met.” Civic solidarity is observed through actions that include aid
and welfare programmes to citizens within a country as well as citizens
beyond the country’s borders (e.g. global development policies).
The primary interest in civic solidarity is protecting citizens against
conditions that would limit their participation in civic life.
The third and final classification of solidarity put forth is political
solidarity. Unlike social solidarity and civic solidarity, political solidarity
is observed where the form of unity is a response to situations of
injustice or oppression. It is not motivated by group identity but
by a desire to change situations of injustice or oppression. Political
solidarity is characterised by individuals making conscious choices and
commitments by joining others to transform a particular situation of
injustice or oppression. What unites people in political solidarity is a
common cause, not membership or citizenship. In other words, we form
a unity not on the basis of what we have in common but on the basis of a
condition or situation that we want to change because we deem it to be
unjust. Thus, political solidarity occurs even when people do not share
a common history of oppression, or reside in the same location, or even
have similar interests. What they would have in common is the desire to
challenge a specific situation of injustice or oppression.
Given that the goal of the feminist movement is to challenge the
oppressive patriarchal system, feminist solidarity is, by definition,
political solidarity (Dosekun, 2007, Mbire-Barungi, 1999). Therefore,
feminist solidarity is a form of unity that seeks to transform situations
of injustice and oppression due to gender inequality. There was a time
when feminist solidarity – or as it is commonly referred to ‘sisterhood’ –
was more social than political. That is to say, it was solidarity based on,
and motivated by, group membership on the basis of shared oppression.
Citing the works of feminist scholars such as Bell Hooks, Scholz (2008)
explains that the notion of ‘sisterhood’ in feminist solidarity has evolved
over the years from being one based on shared oppression (social
solidarity) to one based on a common cause. This evolution came
about as a result of increasing recognition within the feminist movement
that the assumption upon which social solidarity was based was a false
one. Social solidarity within the feminist movement assumed that the
experiences of oppression were the same for all women regardless of
their identity locations (race, class, age, geography and so forth). The
reality is that women’s experiences are not the same.
Feminists recognised that a unity based on the false assumption of
sameness weakened the feminist movement. Unlike social solidarity,
political solidarity is not based on group cohesiveness or membership,
but on the common cause. Therefore, ‘sisterhood’, or feminist
solidarity, is now more political in nature based on common causes,
rather than common experiences. In other words, it is a solidarity not
based solely on who we are but rather on what we are fighting for
(and against). In this way, the feminist movement is strengthened by
our differences while maintaining the focus on the struggle to end
gender-based oppression.
The role of solidarity in the feminist movement
Some would argue with the assertion that solidarity is at the core of the
feminist movement. But it is solidarity that nurtures and strengthens
the movement. The stronger the solidarity, the greater the chances of
successfully bringing attention to the issues, and advocating for change.
Without solidarity, the movement will cease to exist.
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The expression of collective responsibility shapes the
behaviour and attitudes of the individuals involved.
Solidarity strengthens commitment to the cause as individuals
sense a greater connection to a broader community.
Solidarity allows us to connect with and support struggles to change
situations of oppression wherever they are. We do not need to be
in the same place to make an impact. This was one of the key things
I took from the DRC solidarity march on our campus in 2010. At
first we framed the activity as supporting the efforts of women in
the DRC around the issue of sexual violence, particularly the use of
rape as a weapon of war. We quickly realised that this was not just an
issue concerning women in the DRC. It was about women and men
everywhere. We came to the realisation that sexual violence was not
their (Congolese women) issue but our issue. One male student from
Liberia expressed how important this issue was for him personally
because of close family relatives that had been victims of rape during
the war in his country. He too carries scars of sexual terror from
witnessing sexual terror inflicted on others.
Similarly, one young woman from Zimbabwe connected what was
happening in the DRC with the acts of sexual violence happening in
her own country, even where there is no violent conflict. In the spirit of
solidarity, we were able to connect our individual struggles to the broader
community struggles. It is in this way that solidarity mediates between
the individual and the community in an effort to bring about change.
This simple act of solidarity also highlighted our interdependence and
helped to strengthen our unity. We recognised that if rape can be used as
a weapon of war in the DRC, then it will be used in other places. In some
sense, there was recognition that none of us will be safe if the women in
the DRC are not. Even though we may live in a different geographical
location, our well-being depends on their well-being.
Solidarity nurtures and strengthens the feminist movement in at
least two ways. In one way, solidarity mobilises actors from different
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geographic and identity locations to work together for a common
cause. As people acting in solidarity from different locations,
awareness is raised, pressure is mounted, and the impact is greater.
This was certainly true with the march on campus. There were many
people who had not paid much attention to this issue until this activity.
Another way that solidarity nurtures and strengthens the feminist
movement is in how it transforms those who are part of the solidarity
group. The people that engage in solidarity action are transformed
in the process. The expression of collective responsibility shapes
the behaviour and attitudes of the individuals involved. Solidarity
strengthens commitment to the cause as individuals sense a greater
connection to a broader community. Acknowledging and appreciating
our relationship to a broader community helps to make us feel like we
are a part of a project larger than ourselves. In the spirit of solidarity,
we know we are not alone in fighting the problem at hand. We saw
evidence of this on campus after the solidarity march. Many of those
involved committed themselves to a continued effort to do more to
fight sexual violence. Since then, an advocacy group has been formed
to work specifically on this issue.
Solidarity in southern Africa
Much of the focus around transnational feminist solidarity has been on
the relationship between feminists in the global North and those in the
global South (Mendoza, 2002, Mohanty, 2002, Mbire-Barungi, 1999,
Mikell, 1995). Scholars and practitioners have been concerned with
finding ways to nurture and strengthen solidarity across differences.
There has been little focus on transnational feminist solidarity in the
context of South-to-South relationships. I am particularly interested in
political solidarity between and among feminists in southern Africa. As
someone living and working in southern Africa (based in Zimbabwe),
my personal observation is that there is much more we can do to
improve political feminist solidarity in our region. In my experiences,
instances of feminist solidarity in southern Africa are few and far
between. I will qualify this statement by noting that there are many
more instances of solidarity among feminist activists that are social
in nature (based on group membership) than there are instances of
solidarity that are political in nature. Political solidarity is exhibited in
conscious and deliberate efforts to form unity around specific causes
that advance the feminist agenda.
There are several factors that may be contributing to this situation
of limited feminist solidarity within the region. One factor may
be that information sharing is poor. There is generally little that
is known about issues and efforts faced in the different countries.
Sometimes we may hear about a specific situation of gender
injustice in a certain country but will not have sufficient information
about activities being done in that country, so that we can support
their efforts.
Another factor that limits feminist solidarity in the region is
resources. Resource constraints limit the amount of activity that
we can undertake at any given time. Thus much of our emphasis
in networking with others is placed on relationships where we
see potential for financial and other forms of material support.
This means less attention is given to solidarity activities for the
sole purpose of advancing the cause. Furthermore, one of the
consequences of this focus on resources is that there is competition
among activists for funding. Solidarity is unlikely in a situation where
we view each other as competitors.
There are programmes that take place in more than one country,
such as the 16 Days of Activism campaign that focus on a particular
issue. Different organisations within and across different countries
organise different activities to raise awareness and advocate on
a particular issue, in this case, violence against women. However,
with the exception of such institutionalised programmes, efforts to
connect struggles within and beyond national boundaries appear
to be few. Instead, there is a tendency to focus on the struggles
within our own countries so that we are not able to appreciate how
our struggles connect with the struggles of others in our region. For
example, reducing domestic violence is a top priority for activists
in many countries in the region but there are few, if any, efforts
to connect the struggles in our individual countries beyond the
commemoration of institutionalised programmes such as the 16
Days of Activism.
This list of contributing factors I have presented is by no means
exhaustive. I am certain there are more factors than those that I
have listed here. The point is that there are many factors that
may be behind the low level of feminist solidarity in southern
Africa. In appreciating the importance of solidarity to the
feminist cause, it is important to consider means and strategies
for improving the situation. I propose a few strategies in the
following section.
Strengthening solidarity
We learned about the Bukavu march against sexual violence at a
feminism training course. The young women from the DRC who
extended the invitation deserve congratulations for using the
space to build solidarity. Their simple invitation was an invitation
to the rest of us to be in solidarity with them. The lesson for all of
us is that we should use transnational spaces to build solidarity.
We should use these spaces and situations to draw upon our
shared struggles and efforts as well as to invite others to join us
in our efforts. More and more spaces are opening up for such
interaction – from conferences and workshops to blogs and
social-networking sites. Sharing information is an important step
in building solidarity.
Organising the solidarity march on campus was possible because
we had some knowledge of the event planned in Bukavu. That
provided guidelines for a specific activity while allowing us to
develop an activity that suited our context. Activities done in
solidarity need not be coordinated, but it does help to know
about other activities. If the example of the campus solidarity
is anything to go by, knowing what others are doing can be a
motivating force for others to take action.
Another lesson I take from this experience is the centrality of
the cause in building and sustaining solidarity efforts. Political
solidarity happens because people want to see the end to some
injustice or situation of oppression. I have come to appreciate
that when individuals are able to personally connect with a
particular cause and the reason for it, they are moved to action.
Political solidarity is not charity (actions done to help another),
it is collective action taken to address a situation of injustice or
oppression that affects us all. Guided by specific causes, feminist
solidarity ends up being solidarity for feminist causes rather than
being merely social solidarity amongst feminists.
Conclusion: Come along sister!
Come join us! That was the simple invitation that sparked the
idea of a solidarity march on our campus. Inviting others and
responding to the invitation of others will help us form united
fronts to fight against oppression. However, we need not wait
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for formal invitations to engage in solidarity. The standing
invitation is the cause around which we are rallying. The
desire to end injustice is what unites us and is the basis of the
solidarity. A chant recited at feminist gatherings that I have
recently attended goes as follows:
Call: Sister! Sister!
Response: Sister!
Call: Sister! Sister!
Response: Go ahead Sister!
The potential of ICT for
young women’s organising
By Jan Moolman
In light of what has been discussed in this paper, I propose
that the last line of this chant be changed from “Go ahead
sister!” to “Come along sister” as an invitation to join in
solidarity – feminist (political) solidarity that is based on
our commitment to fighting injustice and oppression.
Hleziphi Naomie Nyanungoh is a
lecturer at the Institute of Peace,
Leadership and Governance at
Africa University.
References
Dosekun, S. (2007) 'Defending Feminism in Africa'. Postamble, 3,
41 - 48.
Mbire- Barungi B. (1999) 'Ugandan Feminism: Political Rhetoric or
Reality?' Women's Studies International Forum, 22, 435 - 439.
Mendoza, B. (2002) 'Transnational feminism in question'. Feminist
Theory, 3, 313-332.
Mikell, G. (1995) 'African Feminism: Toward a New Politics of
Representation'. Feminist Studies, 21, 405-424.
Mohanty, C.T. (2002) "Under Western Eyes" Revisited: Feminist
Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles. Signs: Journal of Women in
Culture and Society, 28, 500 - 535.
Scholz, S. (2008) Political Solidarity, University Park, Pennsylvania,
The Pennsylvania State University.
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My first professional job was as an intern at a
feminist journal in South Africa. It was the first
time I had access to a computer outside of my
university campus, where my interaction with
what I understood as ‘technology’ was limited to
just two ‘word-processing’ classes a week. As an
intern I shared an email address with the editor.
I still have the email I received once from a
friend. As an introduction he wrote: “I apologise
if this email interrupts your day, Madam. This
is actually intended for your intern: Janine
Moolman. I hope this will not prejudice her as it
is a personal email…”
Understanding the phenomenon
‘ICT’ is a broad term that describes the tools and technologies we
use for information and communication. According to Gender
Evaluation Methodologies (GEM) for Internet & ICTs (APC,
WNSP), “Information and communication are integral to human
society. In many cultures today, information retrieval and presentation
– the recording of wisdom and history – is still done with the use
of speech, drama, painting, song or dance. The use of writing
changed this enormously, and the invention of the printing press
allowed communication on a massive scale, through newspapers
and magazines. More recent technological innovations increased
further the reach and speed of communication, culminating, for now,
with digital technology. These new ICTs can be grouped into three,
frequently interlinked, categories:
1. Information technology uses computers, which have become
indispensable in modern societies, to process data and save time
and effort;
2. Telecommunications technologies include telephones (with fax)
and the broadcasting of radio and television, often through
satellites; and,
3.
Networking technologies – the Internet being the best
known - but which has extended to mobile phone technology,
Voice Over IP telephony (VOIP), satellite communications,
and other forms of communication that are still in their infancy.
These new technologies have become central to
contemporary societies.” 1
T
hat was in 1997. Since then I have had many more email addresses
– all my very own! As a young feminist activist, I was very aware
of how – as technology evolved and became more accessible – my
activism took forms and paths that I would not have imagined possible
before. It exposed me to spaces and people and experiences that I
would never have had access to. It helped me connect, share and learn
from others, and discover ways in which I could express myself quickly
and safely and get feedback from my peers.
This article explores the potential that information and
communications technology (ICT) hold for young women’s activism
and self expression through sharing interviews conducted with
four young women activists in Africa, who are using ICT to break
boundaries, build solidarity and connect with others.
While the contribution of these technologies to Africa’s
development is undisputed, access to – and the availability of –
ICTs remains a critical concern. This includes infrastructure for the
telecommunications and networking technologies mentioned above.
As of 30 June 2010, Africa accounted for only 5.6 percent of the
world’s Internet usage while Internet penetration was 10.9 percent of
the continent’s population (Internet World Stats, accessed August
2010). These issues of access are experienced even more acutely by
women, who because of the gender digital divide2 are less able than
men to influence and benefit from ICTs.
This is the context in which the four young women I interviewed
work. 3 While recognising these challenges, they each maintain that
ICTs are playing an important role in their activism and in building
and sustaining the women’s movement in Africa and the rest of
the world, and encourage other young women activists to take
advantage of them.
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The potential of ICT for young women’s organising
Overcoming boundaries,
building solidarity
ICTs have revolutionised the reach and
speed of communications and through this
have changed the landscape of women’s
rights activism across the world. This was
acknowledged in the UN Secretary General’s
report prepared for the Beijing +15 review,
which recognises the “importance of media
and ICT in promoting and protecting
women's human rights, supporting their
empowerment and increasing awareness and
acceptance of their leadership roles in society”
(UN Secretary General, 2010: para 340).
The report also highlighted the impact
that media and ICTs have on women’s
advancement, including how they intersect
with issues such as poverty, violence against
women and economic development (UN
Secretary General, 2010).
At the same time, nearly 46 percent of global
Internet users over the age of 18 are female,
77 percent of young women between 15
and 24 engage in social networking, and of
Facebook’s more than 500 million active
users, 56.2 percent of them are female
(UNIFEM, 2010). As Françoise Mukuku,
coordinator of Si Jeunesse Savait4 (SJS), a
young women’s feminist organisation in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), says;
“Technology is a thing of our time...I mean
we are born with it and we are blessed that
it has such potential. It allows us to bridge
the gap of many years and distance. Take
the example of Congo where the landline
systems died 20 years ago. It means that
some of our members can't even recall that
we used to have telephony in Congo! But
now with mobile technology, all of us are able
to communicate, even in the furthest bush.”
Moreblessing Mbire, who works at the
Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre
and Network ,5 agrees; “ICTs can help
young women across the continent share
experiences and learn from each other. It is
encouraging to hear how others overcame
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certain challenges in their activism. Pulse
Wire and the Association for Women’s
Rights in Development’s (AWID) Young
Feminist Network, for example, are platforms
that we can take advantage of as they provide
an opportunity for young women from
different countries to interact. Pulse Wire
often requests interested members to write
about their lives and experiences in activism.
This promotes a sense of solidarity among
young activists from different areas.”
It is the possibility of connecting with others
– outside of their immediate environment
– that excites all of the women interviewed.
In resource-poor contexts – in which many
women’s organisations in Africa operate – the
Internet opens up opportunities to network,
share ideas, explore fundraising opportunities
and, perhaps most significantly for young
women activists, to connect with others who
share their interests and concerns.
Mbire continues; “[ICTs have] changed
my perception about life. I have had an
opportunity to exchange information with
other people outside Zimbabwe whose
experiences on women's rights enlightened
me. It has been encouraging to have
conversations on how ICTs are used in
different places for mobilisation. On the
different platforms I blog, I have received
feedback on email which shows that through
these fora, there is an audience that I have
been able to reach out to. This has been my
source of strength to keep me going … Pulse
Wire and AWID’s Young Feminist Network
help me meet like-minded young women … I
often get information on women from other
countries and refer to it in my own work.”
Young Feminist Wire
The AWID Young Feminist wire is online
information and networking space for
young women across the globe. The Wire
is a space for young feminists – especially
young women working on women’s rights
and gender equality around the world –
to connect, learn and share information.
It is also a place where women’s rights
advocates of all ages can learn more
about young women’s activism and make
connections with younger activists.
Join the Young Feminist Wire at
http://yfa.awid.org/
Source: Young Feminist Wire
Similarly, young feminists in southern Africa
are staying connected through an electronic
regional newsletter called Pepeta News.
Pepeta News
Pepeta News is published by Katswe
Sisterhood, which is a young women’s
network based in Harare, Zimbabwe.
This is an initiative in which young women
across southern Africa share stories about
how they are experiencing their activism
in their respective communities and
countries. Pepeta news is complemented
by a blog, which provides space for
regular discussion and exchange. The
website is also an information hub for
funding and training opportunities, news
and updates that young women activists
will find useful.
Visit www.pepeta.org to submit your
article for publication or access the latest
announcements and updates.
But it is not only through collective
spaces such as Young Feminist Wire,
Pepeta News and Pulse Wire that young
women are connecting with each other.
Egyptian women have claimed the African
blogosphere as their own, as they produce
content in blogs and on social networking
sites, which according to feminist techie
Manal Hassan, “was usually more open,
more personal and very expressive whatever
topic they were covering.”
Hassan is the community coordinator for
Arab Techies: a young network for people
who work creatively with technology, and a
project coordinator for the African Network
for Localisation (ANLoc) where she works
to localise software in different African
languages and trains people all over Africa to
do the same this. She says; “It's very common
for young Egyptian women to be involved
in some of the political causes – or in other
causes for that matter – to promote their
cause in their own words. Why they are part of
it, how does it feel, what change they want to
see and how will this affect them individually.”
Many bloggers understand that the mere
‘copy and paste’ of an announcement or
call for protest might not be attractive to
their audience, and they try to relate it to
themselves as individuals, whether by giving
some background to how they got involved
in it, or reporting on it from a personal
perspective. This, I think, is one of the main
reasons why blogs have become so popular.
One recent example of this is the Blogger
Ma3t who is participating in an Arab-Danish
female bloggers exchange, where in one of
their posts each blogger was to blog about
her city. Ma3t ended up blogging about
torture in Egypt and the protests she has
been participating in then, because this was
how she viewed her city. 6
Noha Atef – an ICT champion
Noha Atef is the editor of tortureinegypt.
net, website (mostly in Arabic, with a
small English section). Her activism has
highlighted the issue of torture in Egypt
and extended debates into the public
sphere by ensuring that ordinary people
and not only human rights activists are
aware of, and monitoring, the issue.
She has collected information, articles
and posts about torture incidents, and
tagged them with the involved police
officers' names, police stations or jails,
cities, etc. After a short while this turned
into a very extensive database. Whenever
she reads about some police officer
(usually getting thanked and promoted or
something), she will look it up in her tags
and see if he is associated with any torture
incidents and remind us of his history.
sharing information and knowledge about
ourselves with others…and also learning
about others. Girls’ Net members recently
held a dialogue with girls from Nigeria
who are part of the Women Technology
Empowerment Centre (WTEC). Using
Gmail chat, they got to see how easy it is to
connect and will be keeping in touch with
each other to see if there are similarities
in their way of living… we are also going
to be collaborating with an organisation
called Polished Pebbles Girls Mentoring
Programme from the US. Both groups
of girls come from similar backgrounds
and want to make a difference in their
disadvantaged communities. The project
will be ongoing and involves these young
women connecting with each other to see
what they can do individually and together.”
She's also one of the contributors to
Piggypedia (http://www.flickr.com/
groups/piggipedia/pool/) – a flickr7
encyclopaedia that encourages people
to upload any photos they have of police
officers involved in any abuses, or help in
identifying some of the photos. Atef also
contributes to the Torture Map: http://
torturemap.info.
Violence against women
However, Ramokobala warns that while ICTs
open doors and create opportunities for
young women and girls, they also pose safety
challenges and young women need to know
how to remain safe online. Responding to
concerns about girls’ safety while using the
very popular Mixit chat application, Girls’
Net developed the ‘Keep Your Chats Exactly
That’ campaign thawt empowers South
African girls and boys with information and
tactics to keep themselves safe when using
social networking tools with a computer or
mobile phone. Noha has been doing much of this on
her own, although she works closely with
human rights groups and violence/torture
rehabilitation centres, where she gets
information and reports but also puts
them in touch with some of the victims
(upon the victims' request) who contact
her through her website.
Source: Manal Hassan
The reach and speed of communications
that ICTs allow are clearly demonstrated
in instant messaging 8 (IM) or chat
applications, which are hugely popular
with young people. Whether using cell
phone applications such as Mixit in
South Africa, Skype, Yahoo Messenger
or other applications, IM allows real
time conversations and interactions. Eva
Ramokobala, who manages Girls’ Net 9, a
project of the South African organisation
Women’s Net, highlighted the value of IM:
The campaign provides online safety tips
for young people, including not sharing
personal information online and knowing
how to use privacy settings. Teachers are
encouraged to teach learners about the
responsible use of ICTs, while schools are
encouraged to develop ICT policies that
would cover issues such as cyber bullying
by learners.10
“Because these platforms cut distance and
time, they can be used for collaborating and
In the DRC, SJS is implementing a project
called ‘Take Back the Tech! To End Violence
Against Women’.11 In an interview with
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The potential of ICT for young women’s organising
Mavic Cabrera-Balleza about how ICTs can
be used to talk about women’s reality in the
DRC, Mukuku says:
“We have that bad, long legacy of
dictatorship in our country, so people
are really afraid to hold their leaders
accountable for what is being done to
them. But we women, especially young
women, are willing to break the silence.
We didn’t really live during those dark days
when people were disappearing for not
saying the right things in public, but we still
see how risky it is to go against the norms,
because we can become scapegoats. So we
do it online, everyday, more and more we
are building our political consciousness.
We are taking detours like using creative
stuff to understand what is required to end
poverty, to be part of the leadership and
to build our political consciousness. We
need more projects on how to exercise our
communication rights to be able to change
the situation.” (Cabrera-Balleza, 2010)
Freedom Fone
Freedom fone is an ICT tool, which
combines the mobile phone with
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) for
citizen benefit. It provides information
activists, service organisations and
NGOs with widely usable telephony
applications to deliver vital information
to communities who need it most
(freedomfone.org). It allows ordinary
people who do not have access to the
Internet to access information in their
own languages about issues that concern
them. In the DRC, SJS plans to use the
freedom fone as part of their violence
against women project. Mukuku explains;
“…We will provide information via the
freedom fone about the first things to do
whenever you are a victim of an attack or
violence and give you even the possibility
to talk live to a counsellor if you are far
from any medical, police or court facilities.
We also want to develop an audio drama
on sexual harassment in a creative way.
We will talk about the different forms of
violence against women, as most of us
internalise some of the violence and tend
to think it is normal or part of our lives.”
Conclusion
This brief article has provided a snapshot of
the ideas and projects that young women
in Africa are involved in. By no means
exhaustive, it has tried to show, through
interviews, that young women are using
ICTs to deepen their own activism and to
connect with others. ICTs are providing
spaces in which young women are able
to express themselves freely and to talk
about issues that are of concern to them.
However, while access remains a serious
concern, mobile phones present enormous
opportunities for young women activists
to extend their reach. However, violence
against women in online spaces is a concern,
and more needs to be done to ensure that
women and girls are safe online.
In Zimbabwe, Kubatana.net has already
produced a serialised audio drama on
sexual harassment using the freedom
fone called ‘Tariro on Top’.
Read more at www.kubatana.net
Sources: freedomfone.org & interview with Francoise Mukuku
Jan Moolman is the Women's Rights Project Coordinator at the Women's Networking and Support Programme,
Association for Progressive Communications.
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Endnotes
1. Gender Evaluation Methodologies (GEM) for Internet & ICTs
(APC, WNSP)
2. The ‘digital divide’ is the division between those who have access
to ICT and are using it effectively, and those who do not. Since
ICT is increasingly a foundation of our societies and economies, the
digital divide means that the information ‘have-nots’ are denied the
option to participate in new ICT-based jobs, e-government, ICTimproved healthcare, and ICT-enhanced education. More often than
not, the information have-nots are in developing counwtries, and in
disadvantaged groups within countries (bridges.org, 2006)
3. The four women were interviewed during August 2010. They were
Françoise Mukuku from the DRC, Eva Ramokobala from South
Africa, Moreblessing Mbire from Zimbabwe, and Manal Hassan, an
Egyptian feminist currently living in South Africa.
4. Si Jeunesse Savait (‘If Young Women Knew’ in French) is a
feminist group based in Kinshasa, DRC. It has representation in three
provinces of eastern DRC. SJS builds the leadership skills of young
women in sexual and reproductive rights, ICT and entrepreneurship.
SJS has 115 members and more than 2,000 supporters around the
country. They are involved in advocacy work for a national ICT policy
plan and are also active in research and studies to make sure that
gender is at the centre of this ICT policy plan. The group also does
crosscutting advocacy with other ministries such as education, gender
and justice to see a clear plan to train women and girls in ICT and to
have a plan that addresses violence against women in the manner in
which it intersects with ICT.
5. The Zimbabwe Women Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN)
is an information-based organisation with a focus on building
knowledge and promoting gender equality and women’s rights at
all levels. It does this through collection, analysis, processing and
dissemination of information.
6. Read more at http://ma3t.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-city.html
7. Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application. See
more at www.flickr.com
8. Instant messaging, or chat, describes one way in which people
communicate online in real time. Typically, people in online chat
sessions type messages to each other using their keyboards. The
message then appears on the screens of all the participants. Chats
can involve two or more people. (APC glossary, available at www.apc.
org/en/glossary)
9. Girls’ Net is a South African social and multimedia programme that
gets girls involved in the use of technology for their own development
to be agents of social change. The project was established in 2004
and it seeks to empower disadvantaged South African young women
and girls between the ages of 10–23 through skills development,
networking and partnership building to advance gender equality.
10. Read more about the campaign at http://www.girlsnet.org.za/
about-keep-your-chats-exactly
11.‘Take Back the Tech! to End Violence Against Women’ is a twoand-a-half year project that is being implemented in 12 countries and
involves documenting violations of women's rights online, capacity
building for activists and survivors in the creative and safe use of
ICTs (including digital story telling) and advocating for policies
to strengthen protection of rights online. This project is part of a
global effort to achieve goal 3 –gender equality - of the Millennium
Development Goals and is supported by the Dutch MDG3 Fund.
References
Bridges.org (2006) ‘Overview of the digital divide’ available at http://
www.bridges.org/publications/85, site accessed August 2010
Cabrera-Balleza M (2010) ‘Democratic Republic of the Congo: Two
sides of the same ICT coin - breaking the silence /breaking the laws’
GenderIT, available at http://www.genderit.org/articles/democraticrepublic-congo-two-sides-same-ict-coin-breaking-silence-breakinglaws, site accessed August 2010
Gender Evaluation Methodology
Internet World Stats, http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm,
site accessed August 2010
UN Secretary General (2010) ‘Review of the implementation of
the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the outcomes
of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly and
its contribution to shaping a gender perspective towards the full
realization of the Millennium Development Goals, Report of the
Secretary General’ available at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/
UNDOC/GEN/N09/637/20/PDF/N0963720.pdf?OpenElement,
UNIFEM (2010) ‘Get the Facts- Young Women and Girls: New
Technologies’ available at http://www.unifem.org/attachments/
events/YoungWomensForumMexico_FactSheet_201008_en.pdf,
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The place of women with disabilities in feminist movements
The place of women with disabilities in
feminist movements
By Agness Chindimba
There are two distinct and seemingly parallel movements gaining currency globally. On the one hand we observe
the feminist and women’s rights movement continuing to gather steam the world over, creating a platform and space
where women can discuss their concerns while fighting the patriarchal system that continues to oppress them. On the
other hand, the disability rights movement is also crystallising – spurred on in particular by the Social Model of Disability – and making inroads, as seen by the enactment of laws in several jurisdictions to ensure that disabled people
are not discriminated against, especially women with disabilities. Although there is considerable overlap between
these movements, which might lead one to conclude that issues affecting disabled women are being adequately addressed, this is not the case on the ground. This piece attempts to explore the possibilities for such an intersection,
and to establish possible parameters for locating women with disabilities in the feminist women’s agenda. The article
brings to the fore issues affecting disabled women and the barriers they face in participating in the feminist movement. It is hoped that, as a result, disability rights of women will be elevated on the global feminist agenda.
Challenges faced by women with disabilities
T
here are a number of areas in which the situation of women with
disabilities points to the need for them to be part of the core
agenda of feminist and women’s movements. In this article, I will use the
issues of poverty and lack of access to economic resources and opportunities, and violence against women to drive the point home.
Poverty: double trouble for women with disabilities
While poverty affects women disproportionately more than men in the
developing world (due to patriarchal property ownership structures),
gender patterns in relation to disability indicate that poverty also hits
women and girls with disabilities harder than other women. Women
with disabilities are much further removed from the centres of power,
and have very little influence on economic decisions. In addition, aid is
less likely to reach women and girls who are less able to compete in situations of scarcity. Disability often leads to limited access to education
and good jobs, thus perpetuating situations of poverty and dependence, especially for women and girls with disabilities.
The limited programmes and initiatives for poverty alleviation that are
targeted specifically at women and girls are rarely sensitive or designed
to accommodate and create spaces and opportunities for women
and girls with disabilities to compete with others for the often-scarce
resources. The resultant situation in most communities in the region is
that women and girls with disabilities tend to be even poorer than other
women, and there is an urgent need for feminist movements to advo-
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cate for the rights and well-being of women
and girls with disabilities.
disabilities often have difficulty with physical
access to health services.
abilities and those promoting gender equality
and the advancement of women.
Violence against women with disability:
a double jeopardy
If these issues are not at the centre of the
feminist and women’s rights movements, then
we may be missing the mark in our advocacy,
as we are not amplifying the voices of the most
unheard and most vulnerable of our women.
In addition, a simple invitation makes a huge
difference: there are often no women with
disabilities at feminist and women’s rights
conferences and seminars simply because they
have not been invited. In that case it does not
feel right to ‘gatecrash’ the movement.
Whereas the region is grappling with a pandemic of violence against women, the reality
is that women with disabilities experience this
violence in amplified proportions compared
to others. They tend to be more vulnerable to
domestic violence than non-disabled women,
given their dependency on male partners and
relatives for their upkeep. This stems from the
fact that girls with disabilities are likely to find
their access to education more limited than
girls in general, and in turn their opportunities for employment. For instance, less than
five percent of children and young people
with disabilities have access to education and
training (Women with Disabilities Fact Sheet).
The UN estimates that the global literacy rate
of young women with disabilities is as low as
three percent.
This lack of education often results in higher
levels of dependency, making them more
susceptible to emotional abuse, which is born
out of the stigma and resentment that society
has towards disability. As such, even when
women and girls have been sexually abused,
they often have little if any social support or
options, as they are likely to be ignored by
society. Compared to their non-disabled
sisters, women with disabilities are more likely
to experience sexual violence in relationships
and in institutions and also experience more
extreme social categorisation. For instance,
because of their disability, they are more likely
to be categorised as being either hypersexual
and uncontrollable, or de-sexualised and inert.
This categorisation has sometimes put women
with disabilities at risk of HIV infection due to
virgin rape. In some societies, it is believed that
one can be cured of AIDS if one sleeps with a
virgin and the myth that women and girls with
disabilities are sexually inactive has resulted
in them being raped. This happens against
a backdrop where women of all ages with
Disability and the feminist agenda
This analysis reveals that there are striking
similarities between feminist women’s rights
and disability rights struggles, and each of
these can provide an insight into the other.
Both feminist and disability movements are
about challenging the status quo where power
is distributed unequally, and advocating for
social justice. Morris (1998) contents that like
feminism, the disability movement is rooted in
the belief that ‘the personal is political’, which
means that our experiences of being denied
opportunities are not to be explained by our
bodily limitations but by the disabling social
environmental and attitudinal barriers that
form part of our daily lives.
This reflects the striking and interrelatedness
of feminist theory to the social model of disability, which contends that we are disabled by
social barriers and not by our impairment. Yet,
as women with disabilities, we face barriers in
participating in the feminist women’s movement due to issues of mobility, accessibility
and deep-rooted stereotypes that still exist
in the movement. For instance, not many
feminist spaces and platforms provide for sign
language interpretation or make materials and
documents available in Braille. This effectively
means that women who are hearing or sight
impaired cannot effectively participate at such
fora and spaces. Similarly, hardly any workshop
and conference organisers seek to host events
at venues that are wheelchair friendly or ensure
that mobility is not a challenge to women and
girls who are physically challenged. Insensitivity to these important consideration make us
women with disabilities invisible, both among
those promoting the rights of people with dis-
Also important is the marginalisation of
women with disabilities in relation to leadership
positions, even in women’s rights organisations. Women with disabilities should be coopted into leadership positions in the women’s
rights movement so that the case of disabled
women can be fully articulated. Currently, very
few women’s organisations have made an effort to include women with disabilities in their
leadership structures. Yet, young women with
disabilities need role models in the movement,
who can encourage them to participate – and
currently these role models are sorely lacking.
These are all issues that the feminist movement needs to address as a matter of urgency.
It should be noted that discrimination and
stigmatisation based on disability still exist
in the feminist movement, as in the rest of
society. It is time that the women's movement
realised that able-ism is practiced routinely by
feminists, who claim to be inclusive. The reality
is that where women with disabilities feel that
they are not being treated as equals, they cannot fully participate in the women’s movement.
Mainstreaming disability into the
feminist agenda
Many women with disabilities have complained that for too long able-ism has left
them on the margins of the women's movement. While lived experiences may be
different between disabled and non-disabled
women, there are very strong threads common
to all women that bind us together in sisterhood. Following from this argument, women's
rights movements and organisations should
endeavour to address the concerns of disabled
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The place of women with disabilities in feminist movements
women and put these issues on their agendas.
Focusing on disability as a minority issue within
women's rights is disempowering to women
with disabilities. The feminist movement
should recognise that women with disabilities
are women first and belong beside them in the
struggle to fight all forms of oppression. There
is a sad tendency to regard issues affecting
women and girls with disabilities as belonging to the disability rights movement and of
no concern to the women’s rights movement.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It is
also very sad that women with disabilities are
often treated as without gender – as not being
women but just being ‘others’. The reality
is that women with disabilities have similar
concerns as non-disabled women, only theirs
are bigger and more challenging.
The persistence of certain cultural, legal
and institutional barriers makes women and
girls with disabilities the victims of two-fold
discrimination – as women and as people with
disabilities. Unfortunately, the disability rights
movement has been less responsive to the
peculiar needs of disabled women. It is for this
reason that the concerns of disabled women
can best be served within the women’s rights
movement. This is not to deny that women
with disability may have special needs, but the
fact still remains that being women remains
our common denominator and identifier.
A lot of feminist literature is inaccessible to
young disabled women because of the academic jargon used to explain and describe our
lives as women. As already pointed out, due
to stigma and lack of opportunities, literacy
among disabled women is very low. Feminist
literature is also not accessible to young deaf
women who use sign language or Braille, thus
effectively curtailing the ability of deaf and
blind women to participate in the movement.
The voices of disabled women have not been
fully integrated into the feminist movement
and as a result they cannot be expected to
fully participate when they have not been
involved in setting the agenda. As long as
disability issues continue to be treated as
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side issues by the feminist movement, young
disabled women will not be able to participate
fully in the movement. This is a big loss to the
feminist movement because the experiences
that women with disabilities bring are invaluable as they are also able to draw from their
experiences in the disability movement.
It may also be that young women with disabilities are not very active in the feminist
movement because they are frustrated, which
is often the case when you are in the minority. It really is high time that organisers of the
women’s rights movement made an effort to
include disabled women.
but little has been produced examining the
place of disabled women in the movement. Nor
has much been done to examine barriers that
hinder effective participation of young disabled
women in the movement. There is a strong
need to embrace disability issues in the feminist
movement. We cannot afford to leave out other
women because they are different from us. At
the end of the day, whatever gains the movement may make will not be real and sustainable
if millions of other women are still oppressed. Of
course some may argue that perfection is not
possible but the global population of disabled
women is huge.
Conclusion
The women’s rights movement needs to take
a hard look at current practices and evaluate
to what extent it is inclusive of women with
disabilities, especially young disabled women.
Disability and issues affecting disabled women
do belong to the feminist movement. Young
women with disabilities have concerns that
organisations for women should look into.
Girls and women of all ages with any form of
disability are among the most vulnerable and
marginalised members of society. Therefore,
there is a need to take into account and to
address their concerns in all policy-making and
programming. Special measures are needed at
all levels to integrate them into the mainstream
of development – for example, coming up with
actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action (General
Assembly Resolution S-23/3 of 10 June 2000,
annex, paragraph 63).
Engagement with young women with disabilities is vitally important, as this will give
them a chance to articulate their needs and
experiences so that they can be effectively
addressed by the women’s movement. Additionally, more research is needed into factors
affecting the participation of young women
with disabilities in the feminist movement.
There is voluminous research from academics and practitioners on gender and feminism
Agness Chindimba is deaf. She holds a
BA (Hons) in English from the University
of Zimbabwe. Agness is the founder and
Projects Coordinator of Zimbabwe Deaf
Media Trust, a media for development and
advocacy trust. She enjoys working with
young deaf women.
References
Jenny Morris. ‘Feminism, Gender and Disability’, text of a paper presented at a seminar in
Sydney Australia, 1998. Available from http://
www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/
morris/gender%20and%20disability.pdf
www.awid.org
Women with Disabilities Fact Sheet, available at
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/enable/WWDFactSheet.pdf
Helen Meekosha. ‘Gender and Disability’,
2004. Paper available at http://www.wwda.org.
au/meekoshagendis1.pdf
Challenges for mobilising resources for
young women’s work
By Fadzai Muparutsa and Sanushka Mudaliar
A couple of months ago, I spent three weeks in South Africa working on a strategic plan for ‘Building
Women’s Collective Power – Change Vision’. The meeting was an opportunity for participants to
think about the kinds of collectives we were building, as young women’s groups or organisations, and
the challenges that we face as well as the opportunities that are available to us in mobilising resources
for programming work that challenges systems of injustice towards women. During the meeting, it
was clear that there are common challenges experienced by young women’s groups and organisations
in mobilising resources. The context of crisis – political, financial and economical – raises the stakes
and pressures for donors and young women’s organisations alike to respond in order to alleviate the
negative impacts on their constituencies, and to propose real development alternatives. This article
explores these dynamics, focusing on the experiences of young women organising and mobilising in
Zimbabwe, as well as in other parts of southern Africa.
Funding trends
G
iven that women are in the majority in southern Africa, one would expect
that the biggest slice of the funding cake would go towards them, but this is
sadly not the case. Research has in fact proved that the majority of the population –
women and girls – has the smallest share. “We saw a clear picture of shortages across
different funding sectors – cutbacks within many donor agencies or inaccessibility of
many funding sources for the large majority of women’s organisations. Recognising
that women’s organisations play vital roles in advancing women’s rights and gender
equality, it was alarming to see that between half and two-thirds of the women’s
organisations surveyed reported annual budgets of less than US$50,000.”1 There
are a number of reasons for this – and they particularly affect young women who are
trying to mobilise and organise in the region.
Until recently, there was little understanding of the specific impact of human rights
violations on young women or recognition of the critical role young women play in
realising women’s rights and tackling global challenges. Today, because of concerted
advocacy by youth activists, the situation is very different. Governments, multilateral
institutions, private sector initiatives and civil society are increasingly adding a focus
on young women to development programmes, and channelling some resources
toward addressing the specific challenges and obstacles faced by young women.
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Challenges for mobilising resources for young women’s work
Young women not only have the best understanding of their needs, they are
also best positioned to define solutions to the issues that most affect them.
Nevertheless, women’s rights advocates working at a community level
with young women – and especially with initiatives designed and led
by young women – struggle to find funding to act on their priorities,
agendas and strategies.
In addition to the pervasive scarcity of funding for women’s rights
activism, young women face discriminatory stereotypes related
to age, experience and capacity that limit their ability to mobilise
resources. 2 The methods of organising and strategies used by young
women activists may be different to standard NGO practices, and
often their initiatives are not housed within a registered NGO.
As a consequence, they find it hard to convince funding agencies and
donors to place trust and confidence in their projects. Donors also tend
to be wary of small or new initiatives, instead seeking out established
projects with the infrastructure to manage large amounts of money.
Additionally, many young women’s initiatives do not have the
increasingly specialised financial management, communications, and
proposal-writing skills required to access funding. In fact, young women
interviewees concerned about ‘NGO-ization’ or professionalisation
of activism question whether time spent developing these skills and
managing donor needs wouldn’t be better channelled towards activism
instead. However, that is a debate for another day!
At the same time, young women recognise that the other skills related
to receiving and reporting on grants, such as clear project design or
on-going review and evaluation, can enhance the implementation
and impact of their work. Many donors focus on distributing money,
rather than providing this type of support, but some – including
the International Women’s Health Coalition, the Central American
Women’s Fund, and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa
(OSISA) – do help their grantees build these skills. Because of this,
they have been able to fund innovative activism and multiply their
impact by fostering strong and effective individuals and projects,
including initiatives and projects by budding young women who are
not necessarily involved with registered organisations and networks.
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You may be wondering why the emphasis on young women when
all women seem to be struggling to organise and mobilise in a
context of dwindling resources. Young women not only have the
best understanding of their needs, they are also best positioned to
define solutions to the issues that most affect them. Young women’s
unique perspectives and strategies for organising expand efforts to
fulfil women’s rights, and contribute to strengthening and sustaining
the cause of women’s rights and gender equality. Therefore, greater
dialogue and decisive action to promote strategies to tailor funding
opportunities and mechanisms for women’s rights initiatives designed
and led by young women is urgently needed.
The challenges
Competitive operational environment
Young women in Zimbabwe and southern Africa are organising
in highly competitive, fragmented and politicised environments.
In most of their countries, the governments and other institutions
tasked with promoting and protecting their rights have invariably
not prioritised them in their resource allocations and programming.
“While legislation differs in each country in southern Africa, the region
shares a proliferation of mechanisms and frameworks that supposedly
uphold gender equity. The reality, however, is quite different. Most
existing laws are not financed, implemented or enforced, while some
regulations produce a negative impact.”3 Voices that have hitherto
spoken on gender equality and pushed for budgetary allocations have
for a very long time not highlighted the cause for young women’s rights
and livelihoods. The discourse has generally been couched as ‘rights
of women and girls’ and has not enunciated a clear agenda for young
women’s development in tandem with broader women’s rights agendas.
Global dynamics
Apart from the local spaces that young women have been interacting
in, there are global processes taking place in the development
sector, offering yet more challenges but also opportunities for young
women’s engagement. For instance, there is a global trend among
most bilateral donor institutions to channel all bilateral aid through
governments. This is reflected most in the 2005 Paris Declaration
on new aid modalities, which has resulted in shrinking spaces and
resources for women’s organising. This is because governments
are less likely to facilitate or allow funding of women’s organising,
especially of women’s groups that adopt a critical stance in relation to
their policies and programmes – or indeed, lack thereof. Yet, one of
the key responsibilities of women’s organisations and movements is
to hold governments accountable for their commitments to women’s
development. There is a need to examine bilateral agreement
patterns and trends between countries as this model has had negative
impacts on resource mobilisation for women’s organising. There is
also a need to examine the impact of the financial crisis and economic
recession on key donors sectors, and how this has impacted funding
for women’s work, especially in the South. So far we have learnt that
‘the systemic crisis is contributing to reduced gross national incomes
for many donor countries, which in turn will mean a decrease in aid
levels’. 4 The full extent of this reduction warrants serious study.
What we do know is that in line with the principles of aid effectiveness
set forth in the Paris Declaration, donor governments are increasingly
asking their Northern civil society grantees to ‘align’ their work with
the development cooperation priorities and ‘complement’ funding
to partner countries through their support for Southern civil society
organisations. The challenges that arise from this scenario are who
sets the funding agenda and how can young women’s organisations
and groups be incorporated into the discussions about available
funding or about the establishment of mechanisms that provide
basket funding for women, gender and HIV initiatives.
Even at the UN level, this underfunding of women’s work is
discernible. The UN bodies previously tasked with advancing gender
equality and women’s rights have traditionally been underfunded,
although their mandates involve the majority of the global population.
In July 2010, the United Nations Gender Assembly created UN
Women – the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the
Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about
as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and
mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important
work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system, which focused
exclusively on gender and women’s empowerment. Although a noble
move, one of the main concerns about the creation of this entity is
still the issue of resources: how will it be funded? Member states and
other funders are being encouraged to commit stable resources if it
is to succeed. However, it is quite telling that UNICEF has a budget
of about US$3 billion annually while the previous four women’s units
combined mustered only US$221 million – less than 1 percent of the
US$27 billion that the UN and all its agencies currently spend per
year. Is it going to be significantly different with UN Women? Only
time will tell.
Programme funding versus institutional costs
Of late there seems to be a drive by donors and development
agencies to fund projects and programmes without taking into
consideration personnel and other institutional costs. Projects and
programmes are important, but for these to be implemented the
people who are undertaking the work need adequate remuneration
and organisations also require adequate overhead costs. This
particularly affects young women’s activism since they are not likely
to have been around long enough to have developed networks
and organisations that are institutionally capacitated to run on
just project and programme funds without institutional support.
Furthermore, young women are hardly ever consulted or involved
in discussions and negotiations within national funding structures.
They are not in that conversation and yet, when we talk about aid,
how often are young women the ones who are most 'vulnerable' and
most in need of it?
Since the 1990s, the policies of agencies for international cooperation
have moved more and more towards programme-based approaches.
The purpose is to avoid fragmentation of development assistance,
to achieve enhanced coordination of financial means and better
cooperation. In addition, the ownership of development programmes
by recipient countries and the support of partners’ institutional
development are strongly emphasised, which could not be achieved
to a satisfactory degree by the project-based approach.
The most important aspect of programme-based assistance is the
sector-wide approach (SWAp). It is characterised by various forms and
definitions depending on the multiple agencies involved in international
cooperation, which also name these approaches in slightly different
ways. But in general, a SWAp is “a process in which funding for the
sector – whether internal or from donors – supports a single policy and
expenditure programme, under government leadership, and adopts
common approaches across the sector. It is generally accompanied
by efforts to strengthen government procedures for disbursement
and accountability. A SWAp should ideally involve broad stakeholder
consultation in the design of a coherent sector programme at micro,
meso and macro levels, and strong co-ordination among donors and
between donors and government.”
It is also important to note that agencies for international cooperation
vary in the interpretation of the concept of ‘ownership’. The definition
of ‘ownership’ ranges from (central) government ownership, to the
inclusion of local government and/or key elements of civil society, to
everyone involved in a given sector.
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Challenges for mobilising resources for young women’s work
Together with the idea of SWAp goes the concept of ‘basket
funding’, which means joint funding by several donors. It may or
may not be provided in the form of budget support to the recipient
government. Budget support in turn can be provided either as
support to the budget as a whole or as part of a programme or
sector. Prerequisites for the receipt of development assistance
under the new aid paradigm are national policy frameworks for
good governance and decentralisation that have been implemented
or are in the process of being implemented.
Although this shift in policy and framework provides opportunities,
there are challenges in terms of how civil society and in particular
young women’s organisations will access funding from donors. In
Zambia for example, the government refused for two years to sign
off on European Union funding for civil society, because it wanted
control of the agenda.
The basket beast
Yet another emergent model for funding women’s work in our
part of the world is basket funding. More and more donors are
moving towards pooling their resources into big pots, which are
managed and distributed by selected entities – often umbrella
organisations or institutions in the targeted recipient countries.
In Zimbabwe, for instance, a new basket funding mechanism
for the women’s movement was developed in 2008 and is being
supported by the European Commission (EC) and Britain’s
Department of International Development, and managed
by UNIFEM. The EC fund is earmarked for members of the
Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe only. This obviously poses
problems for women’s groups that are not members of the
coalition. It effectively means that young women’s organisations
that are not affiliates of the coalition will be unable to access
this vital and substantial pot of funds. Currently, only one young
women’s group is a member of the coalition.
The biggest question is whether young women’s organisations have
to align their agendas with the coalition’s agenda or be co-opted
by another organisation that is a member of the coalition for them
to access funding? Linked to this are other important questions:
to what extent will young women’s groups and organisations
have to compromise their values and agendas for them to access
funding? What does it mean in terms of the amounts of funding
that the organisations would be able to access? Is there ‘ownership’
or autonomy for young women’s organisations that enter into
partnerships with organisations that will be receiving funding? All
these are pertinent questions that women’s movements in our
region need to grapple with.
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Building and sustaining the fires of change
The need to fund young women’s activism cannot be over emphasised.
As young women, we are not always located within organisations
that focus solely on young women’s needs and support, although we
realise that the need for such organisations is great. Identifying spaces
where we are able to share and engage with other young women is
important, as the information exchanged can be used to build on our
agency and open up further opportunities for us to make a difference
in our communities. How young women strategically build their base
of support is important in strengthening a voice that is not always
heard. Strategic collaborations with women’s organisations and other
organisations that do work on women’s rights – including male-focused
organisations – will be complimentary to the work we are undertaking.
Identifying gaps within our own organisations and groups as well as
gaps in the organisations we are working with will provide unique
opportunities to build on our capacities.
I have had the opportunity to engage in such spaces for young women
and this has proved to be invaluable. The Feminist Circle, which
is a young women’s group based in Harare, is a space specifically
created to allow young women to air their views, share information,
and strengthen their networks – and as such it has grown into a rich,
knowledgeable and safe environment for young women. The Feminist
Circle has been able to build, strengthen and maintain relationships with
young women working in various human rights organisations. These
kinds of relationships are crucial in thinking about how young women
collectively form structures that amplify their voices. But, such spaces
need financial and other resources to be sustainable.
Another strategy used by the Feminist Circle is to allow for knowledge
transference and inter-generational information sharing. These
young women have been able to create links amongst themselves
and with other women’s organisations and have used these linkages
as a strategy in mobilising resources. These linkages or strategic
collaborations between young women and women’s organisations
have allowed for a synthesised approach to addressing injustices
against women that can be supported by development agencies and
donors who they may not have traditionally worked with. These kinds
of collaborations form the cornerstone in building strong movements
around women’s issues.
Some funding partners have proactively sought out young women’s
organisations, outfits and networks to assist them with much needed
funding. For instance, in 2010, OSISA put out a call for proposals
to support young women’s initiatives to speak about and put on the
national agendas how the ideology of militarism affects them as
young women. The call was centred on the 16 Days of Activism for
No Violence Against Women and Children campaign. The theme
for the 2010 campaign was ‘Structures of Violence: Defining the
Intersections of Militarism and Violence Against Women’. Similarly,
the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) has a
fund targeting young feminists and many young women’s initiatives
have received support from the organisation. There is a need for
more funding partners and donors to seriously consider this approach
to ensure that young and upcoming activists for women’s rights
are supported and are not unduly disadvantaged by their limited
experience and lack of well-established organisations.
should be smart enough to critique the politics of these bodies. We
also remain hopeful that the creation of UN Women could provide
opportunities for funding, but we also know that such bodies have strict
requirements for disbursing funding and their application forms are not
the easiest to understand. There is also a need to hold our governments
accountable on how national funds are used, by budget tracking and
getting involved in discussions that women’s organisations, such as the
Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network and others in the
region, host on gender and budgets.
Conclusion: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the
master’s house”
Also very important is self-accountability among young women: are we
making the most of the money that we raise? Are we investing funds
with financial input from those who understand the industry? This will
not only increase our resource pool, but will also help to ensure the
sustainability of our initiatives, projects, programmes and activism.
Young women’s groups are well placed to exploit the available
opportunities, but given the political climate and the imbalance of
power in the funding world, they have to be resourceful, innovative
and strategic. Young women bring a unique perspective to the human
rights/gender rights movement that should be valued. More spaces
like the Feminist Circle, where young women are able to replenish their
energies and encourage each other’s growth, should be supported. It is
from these spaces that young women’s voices can be amplified.
Women exist in a context where being black, poor, female and young
means traversing and finding ways to enter restricted spaces. Political
turmoil and economic instability have created conditions in which
young women navigate and negotiate access to spaces that did not
always allow them to protect themselves, in contexts of vulnerability to
HIV transmission, gender-based violence and diminished resources.
It is important that young women create spaces to congregate
and that information about these spaces is widely communicated.
Continuing to create a space for dialogue and sharing of perspectives
on what it means to be a young woman in southern Africa is important
to interrogate assumptions, sharpen our analysis and to build some
kind of common framework on the politics of gender and sexuality,
and more importantly to share notes on how we creatively and
innovatively mobilise resources to support our agency.
Resource mobilisation is important. There is a need to identify
alternative and innovative ways for securing resources. We also need
to be making our demands known to the development agencies and
funders that we are in contact with. Identifying alternative sources
of funding, such as private institutions like banks and businesses,
is necessary and to do this we have to be able to market our
organisations and the work we do, but we have to be conscious of
marketing gimmicks that skew messages and struggles.
National and international structures provide spaces and opportunities
for young women’s organisations to access funding. However, we
Fadzai Muparutsa is Programme Manager of
Gender, at Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe.
Sanushka Mudaliar is a member of the
AWID Young Feminist Wire.
Endnotes
1. AWID
2. The term ‘resource mobilization’ refers to all the activities related to
increasing organisational assets, including fundraising, advocating with
donors and other actors, alliance building and strategising with others
in the women’s movements.
3. JASS Southern Africa Thinkshop 4
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Photographer / Tsitsi Mukamba
Young women’s activism during
the 2010 16 Days campaign
By Faith Phiri
“Act now, be silent no more!” was the campaign slogan. And it was also an urgent call for all young women
in Malawi to reject and speak out about violence against young women in the country. What was unique and
special about this is that it was not a slogan chanted on behalf of young women by others, but a statement by the
young women themselves about their own lives. This is extraordinary indeed because it was the very first time
that young women were organising themselves and speaking out about their rights as young women during the
16 Days of No Violence Against Women Campaign in Malawi, and in other parts of southern Africa.
T
herefore, the year 2010 became a special one for us; building our
confidence and carving a space for ourselves (as young women)
in social justice movements that have traditionally used the 16 Days
of Activism’s global campaign (running from 25 November to 10
December) as a platform to organise around an d denounce gender
inequality and violence against women. While in past decades, many
women’s rights’ organisations and fora have successfully used this
global campaign period; young women’s voices have hitherto been
generally absent. This was to change in 2010 in southern Africa, where
the Young Voices Campaign, expounded on in Tsitsi Mukamba’s
article in this Issue, supported young women’s activities and initiatives,
in line with the global theme: “Structures of Violence: Defining the
Intersections of Militarism and Violence against Women.”
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In my country (Malawi) – and probably in other countries in the region
– the 2010 activism campaign was a special milestone in the fight
against violence against young women, especially in my community
where for the first time we saw young women being at the centre and
at the forefront in demanding their rights and freedoms. The question
remains though whether their voices reached listening and willing ears!
The Malawi experience
he young women’s voices campaign was designed to motivate and
mobilise young women all over the region to be proactive and make
their voices heard when issues of women’s rights are at stake. The
idea was to give power and confidence to young women in order to
Young women
challenged political,
religious and
traditional leaders to
join hands in publicly
condemning violence
against women.
change their situations. I believe
this was an effective approach
as it ensured young women’s empowerment
and promoted young women to exercise
responsibility over their own rights. I also
discovered through this process that many
young women are not aware of their rights,
and most of the time, accept violence as part
of their life. This is a very big challenge and
our activities aptly addressed this concern.
However, more awareness and training is
needed to bridge the gap.
In my community, just like in many other
communities in sub-Saharan Africa, it is
taboo for a young woman to stand up and
speak, or to report about violence or abuse.
Traditionally, we have been taught to be
silent and keep our lives’ struggles secret,
even at the expense of our very own lives.
For a long time as young women, we have
conformed to these societal expectations and
remained silent. However, that silence has
not helped us. In fact, it has caused us a lot
of pain. The 16 Days of Activism campaign
mobilised and challenged us to question
why we should respect such a culture. We
realised that some cultural practices and
norms are not healthy and need to be broken,
and the starting point for us was breaking
the silence on such unfair practices. We were
motivated by evidence that communities that
practice violence against women are poorly
developed. We noted that communities
in the northern part of the country and
part of the southern region like Nsanje are
poorly developed and they are the same
communities that are very conservative
with strongly held perceptions that include
primitive and harmful traditional practices.
During our ‘dance for your right campaign’
these communities showed little interest in
participating in dialogue and looked down
on the mobilisation team. However, it is a
fact that women’s participation is key to
the socioeconomic development of any
community and communities that practise
dehumanising and victimising traditions
against women are unlikely to develop
because young women’s voices matter most
in development.
to endure it, just like their mothers. This
is encouraged through socialisation tools
such as songs. For instance, “Kapilire unka
iweko!” which means “you must persevere in
marriage!” is a famous and very popular song
at wedding ceremonies, and the song advices
the bride to stick it out in marriage, even
if there is abuse and violence! Fear of the
rejection that she may suffer, coupled with a
lack of empowerment and knowledge about
women’s rights, often force women to remain
in abusive relationships.
The Girls Empowerment Network (GENET)
provided space and opportunity through its
16 Days of Activism campaign to denounce
harmful traditional practices. We conducted
a ‘Dance for your rights’ city-to-city tour,
which performed in over 30 locations across
the three regional cities during the 16 Days
campaign period. The tour spoke out
against oppressive cultural practices that
disadvantaged girls and young women, and
encouraged young women to come into the
open and expose these practices and abuses.
This was unusual in a context where women
– especially young women – who report or
speak out about their personal experience,
especially if it is about experiences of sexual
violence, are labelled as ‘prostitutes’ and
sometimes even regarded as mentally
disturbed. They are often condemned and
blamed for ‘asking’ for the violence they
experience because they are not ‘good
women’ or ‘good girls’. In fact, any young
woman who appears to be knowledgeable
about her rights and worse still, demands
them, is not accepted in society.
As such, it is quite sad that young women
are born in families where violence against
women and abuse are the order of the day;
they see their mothers being abused and
they in turn accept the abuse and are ready
The GENET 16 Days campaign in Malawi
was highly publicised – on national radio,
newspapers, television and at public rallies.
It made society aware that young women
were not blind to the violations and were
challenging society to do something about
this situation. “Violence is painful and we
can’t afford to stand aside and continue to
suffer and remain quiet while our situation
is getting out of hand. Let’s act now and
be silent no more!” commented one young
woman. Key among the issues raised by
young women during the 16 Days campaign
tour were issues of child marriage, traditional
rituals such as sexual cleansing during
puberty, sexual cleansing after the death
of the husband, wife inheritance and many
others. The call was to completely abolish
such disastrous practices.
Voice at last!
The 2010 campaign was an eye-opening
forum for most young women, who had
never before had any safe space to speak out
about abuses and violation of their rights.
Young women in Malawi were so excited with
this opportunity that they resolved to form
themselves into a motivated strong young
women’s rights’ network, which acts as a
watchdog to ensure and monitor that these
dehumanising and marginalising traditional
practices stop and, to challenge government,
policy makers, public and civil societies and
religious groups to scale up efforts towards
elimination of all forms of harmful cultural
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Young women’s activism during the 2010 16 Days campaign
practices, gender discrimination and disempowerment of women,
especially young women. At the various fora for young women during
the 16 Days campaign period, there was consensus that it is not enough
to put legislation in place without an enabling environment. Young
women challenged political, religious and traditional leaders to join
hands in publicly condemning violence against women. It is only when
political will of the highest order is observed that some sections of
society begin to listen and transform.
This was a golden opportunity for more young women to actively
participate, be involved in and work as a unit to address challenges
that affect young women. The result of this has been a powerful
grassroots network of young women who are passionate about
fighting gender inequality and speaking against traditional beliefs and
practices that dehumanise young women. Young women’s voices and
their participation are some of the most powerful weapons to fight
violence against women.
Knowledge and participation as empowerment
It is high time that young women are in the forefront of the fight for
their rights. It was obvious that these meetings were a fruitful and
effective way of collectively fighting violence against women.
Apart from awareness raising, the 2010 16 days of Activism campaign
also served as an empowerment campaign for young women in Malawi.
The campaign was designed to use an empowering approach – making
young women themselves be the change agents and this was a good
starting point and a step forward in building their confidence and
agency in ending violence against women. Models that allow young
women to take leadership positions and speak and take action against
violence against women are very empowering as illustrated in Ennie
Chipembere’s article in this Issue. Young women who had endured
violence in silence, for the first time felt safe to speak out: “After I was
raped by my brother-in-law three years ago and was infected by HV
in the process, I have never shared my experience with anyone. My
mother strongly warned me from disclosing what happened in fear of
breaking my sister’s marriage. I have been in despair ever since, hating
and blaming myself. But now through this forum and my participation
in 2010 campaign, I feel relieved and comforted. I therefore encourage
you my fellow young women gathered here never to keep quiet
whenever your rights are violated. Stop suffering in silence and expose
perpetrators of violence. Let’s rise up, act and be silent no more!” said
Mayeso Siphiri1 one of the participants at one of the GENET young
women forum meetings during the 16 Days campaign. Yet another
young women opened up about her forced marriage to her rapist: “I
was raped and later married the man that raped me because of pressure
from my relatives as I became pregnant after the rape. I was later told
that the man was advised to sleep with me, an albino, to cleanse himself
from HIV. It is sad that I was infected with HIV. And I have two children
and as I am talking now he has dumped me. I now live by begging and I
don’t even know where I can go and get justice.”
The campaign also offered an opportunity for young women to speak with
one voice against traditional beliefs and practices that young women are subjected to. Through our phone-in and panel discussion on a radio programme,
these issues were intensely discussed and over 500 listeners participated and
contributed through phoning in and sending SMS messages.
With funding from the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa,
young women’s initiatives during the 16 Days campaign could be rolledout and there was no excuse for not taking action and participating.
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Young women were indeed motivated, empowered and equipped
with skills and information about young women’s rights. However,
we do acknowledge that as young women, we still have to work hard
to create spaces for our voices to be heard. We also need adequate
resources. But the question is: Are our governments, policy makers,
law enforcement agents and women’s movements ready to hear
young women’s voices and ready for change? But whatever the
response, young women are clear about their message:
“ACT NOW, BE SILENT NO MORE, STOP VIOLENCE
AGAINST GIRLS AND WOMEN NOW!”
Faith Phiri is a young Malawian woman and a dynamic and wellmotivated human rights and gender activist. She has a strong
passion for young people especially young women. She is a
co-founder and leader of a grassroots young women activists’
network called Girls Empowerment Network (GENET-Malawi),
an indigenous non-governmental organisation that works to
support and empower young women in Malawi, and to advocate
for policy reform and gender sensitive policies that would protect
and promote the interest of young women in Malawi. She holds a
Masters in Public Health from College of Medicine.
1. Not her real name
Lucy Mazingi
The Buwa! interview:
Lucy Mazingi on women leaders and empowering
youth in Zimbabwe
By Margaret Chinowaita
A number of powerful women leaders have emerged in Zimbabwe’s post-independence
era, questioning patriarchy and socio-cultural dogma that render women ineffective in the
society. Rarely do we see profiles of young women among those celebrated as making a
difference at community, national and regional levels. Yet, across the region, many young
women have been taking leadership positions and transforming lives at various levels.
Margaret Chinowaita spoke to one such young woman – Lucy Mazingi, the Director of the
Youth Empowerment and Transformation Trust (YETT) in Zimbabwe.
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The Buwa! interview: Lucy Mazingi on women leaders and empowering youth in Zimbabwe
Chinowaita:
What makes a great woman leader?
Mazingi:
A great woman leader is somebody who is able to listen – seeking first
to understand before being understood. A great woman leader should
be able to lead with empathy, integrity, honesty and vision.
Chinowaita:
Lucy, you are clearly a great woman leader – and we know the
system of patriarchy does not believe in women leaders. How did
you manage to rise above it?
While patriarchy does not believe
in women leaders, I rose above
the system due to a supportive
and open-minded father.
Mazingi:
While patriarchy does not believe in women leaders, I rose above
the system due to a supportive and open-minded father. It is the
way I was raised in a family of two girls and four boys. My brothers
were very supportive and our father treated us equally. We were
awarded equal opportunities and this helped me interact with men
in different spheres of power or influence in government and other
sections later in my life.
Being involved in the youth movement, I quickly learnt that it is always
important to rise above petty issues. I don’t give much time to minor
issues. I am also an open-minded person, and have an ‘open door’
policy for engaging with colleagues. I am always ready to discuss
issues and treat them with due merit. In my engagement in broader
civil society movements and networks, I desist from politicking – there
are a lot of ‘cliques’ but I choose not to get involved.
Chinowaita:
How did your activism in women’s rights and youth rights start?
Mazingi:
I started working in government as a labour relations of ficer in 1998,
advocating for the worker, not the employer. Through it, I realised
the activism in me. I also had a passion for women’s issues, so I
studied towards a Master’s Degree in Women’s Law.
In 2002, I joined a women’s NGO, the Zimbabwe Women Resource
Centre Network (ZWRCN), as a programme of ficer responsible
for the gender budgeting programme. While working with women
for two years, I realised that some of the challenges they were
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facing were not being addressed by government. The cost and
unavailability of sanitary ware was an issue that came up at the time.
We engaged the Ministry of Finance to lower the import duty on
sanitary ware and we succeeded.
During my time in government, I was part of the Tripartite
Negotiating Forum, which grouped together representatives of
employers, workers and government. The composition of the forum
was mainly male and this meant that the priorities were also male
in nature. The men prioritised fuel, incomes and food stuffs among
other things, not giving prominence to women’s issues like sanitary
ware, a basic commodity that was not accessible at that time. The
experience I gained while in government helped me in identifying
advocacy issues relating to women’s rights and livelihoods.
In 2004, I was employed to set up the Youth Empowerment and
Transformation Trust (YETT) out of the realisation that women
and youth were being marginalised at their work places through
low grades, hence low income. There was also a lack of collateral
for women and youth to start businesses. It was worse for the youth
because they did not have access and control over assets at home.
Chinowaita:
YETT has become a household name in advocacy for young
people’s rights. Tell us about your experiences there.
Mazingi:
YETT has come up with a winter school programme on youth
leadership and development as a strategy to empower young women.
In the beginning of the programme there was a mix of male and
female participants, but this was not successful as most women were
reluctant to speak out and express themselves in the presence of men.
YETT then came up with the concept of a young women’s
leadership retreat, preceding the winter school. We noticed that
the participation of young women increased in the leadership
winter school, and some were confident enough to form their
own organisations after the leadership training. YETT has a
gender-sensitive policy that says 50 percent of participants at all
meetings should be women. I strongly believe that for the women’s
movements to become vibrant, work should start at the family
level. That is why I applaud Padare, a men’s organisation that
targets men on gender mainstreaming. They seek to change the
behaviour at family level.
Chinowaita:
You won the award for the Best Director for 2009 in Zimbabwe.
Tell us about that highlight in your life.
Mazingi:
Although I won this award, it was so unexpected. I was so humbled
by the recognition. I think the acknowledgement was that we were
working with youth at a very trying time, and with very limited
resources.
The challenge is to continue doing great work, especially because
once people realise and acknowledge what you can do, it can
become stressful and complex. The award was encouraging though.
I take it that it was a recognition of the youth: it was not only about
me but the youth.
Chinowaita:
You are a feminist, a wife, a mother, a successful businesswoman,
and an organisation director. How do you find the time?
Mazingi:
It has been a lot of work, but if you are used to the routine of a busy
life, you don’t feel the burden that much; you just focus on wanting
to do better. I have a supportive partner who understands my
multi-tasks. My kids understand, and the family where I grew up also
understand.
Chinowaita:
Young women often shy away from feminist activism because of
the perceptions attached to it. What advice would you give to
young women who are not sure about their future?
Mazingi:
Young women need to read widely and be able to appreciate
feminism. I am a liberal feminist, I am not so much on the extreme
side, I co-exist with men, but I am pushing my agenda for uplifting
women’s rights. If one is working around women’s rights they should
be able to connect to these feminist ideologies.
Chinowaita:
Many young women look to you as a role model. How does that
make you feel and what qualities do you think attract them to you?
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Mazingi:
I appreciate that a number of young women look up to me as a role
model, as this challenges me to continue doing great things, to walk
on the right path. I know there are people out there watching, and
that motivates me to continue being a good example. I believe I am
approachable and I understand young people and I think this draws
them to me.
Young women come from different backgrounds. I have worked
with them over the past eight years and I understand their plight,
challenges and frustrations. They sometimes come to my office and
want to just talk. Or sometimes they need a shoulder to cry on. I am
a frank person and I know that I can either attract or repel people,
but I always tell them what I think.
Chinowaita:
And who is your role model and why?
Mazingi:
My role model is my late father. He believed so much in awarding
boys and girls the same opportunities. He was an educationist and
was very organised, and he managed his resources well. If he gave
you 2 dollars to buy some stuff and you used 1.99 he would want
his one cent change back. That taught me to be accountable at a
very tender age. I also had confidence in myself and I knew I had an
unlimited opportunity to excel.
Chinowaita:
You are a mentor but do you also have people who mentor you?
Mazingi:
Yes, I do have people who mentor me. Life is very complex – from
social life to work and the professional side, to being a multi-tasking
wife and a mother among others. At times the pressure is so much
that one needs someone to talk with and help release stress. My
mentors are Shelly Dewolf, a lecturer at Africa University, and Ennie
Chipembere, a Gender Advisor at Action Aid.
Chinowaita:
People describe you as grounded and down-to-earth. What has
kept you grounded after everything you have accomplished?
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Advocacy work on young women’s rights
should be an agenda for the young women.
They should make noise!
Mazingi:
I choose to remain humble and grounded because that is just who I
am. I cannot change my character because of what I have achieved.
Chinowaita:
Where do you see opportunities for young women in Zimbabwe,
and how can young women utilise them?
Mazingi:
In Zimbabwe, 14 percent of the parliamentarians are women and
this presents a challenging opportunity for aspiring young women
leaders. I believe political consciousness should start at an early age,
so that women start contributing at an early stage and are able to
deal with socio-cultural and policy gaps.
On the economic front, opportunities for young women exist in
starting small businesses. They can explore group-lending models.
Opportunities are also there in education; young women can
explore working and going to school at the same time. In addition,
in the fields of sport, music and art, there are opportunities to be
explored by young women.
Young women can also create their own spaces in the women’s
movement. Huge gaps exist in the women’s movement. There hasn’t
been a lot of mentorship or a clear succession and engagement plan
for young women. There is need to transform the existing nature
and spaces in the women’s movement.
Chinowaita:
What would you say are the three top challenges facing young
women today and what advice would you give them in terms of
addressing these?
Mazingi:
The top three challenges for young women are poverty, HIV and
AIDS and unemployment. Women living in poverty-stricken areas
can be encouraged to start small business projects. For instance,
those in rural areas can try vegetable gardens and can use their skills
to makea living. But these are short-term measures. The structural
causes of poverty among women – especially young women – have
to be addressed, and this should be the bigger picture. Advocacy
work on young women’s rights should be an agenda for the young
women. They should make noise!
Chinowaita:
YETT recently helped to organise a very successful and
groundbreaking Southern African Young Women’s Festival
in October 2010 in Harare. What are your reflections on this
festival?
Mazingi:
I was amazed by the creativity of the committee organising the
festival. It left me more than convinced than ever that, given
resources, young women can work wonders. The festival was one
platform at which women from various countries and different
backgrounds could come together and take responsibility, and they
delivered a most successful event.
Regarding the issue of HIV and AIDS, I urge young women to focus
more on prevention. A lot has been done on treatment and care, and
this is important. But prevention needs to be scaled up and emphasised.
I was very happy to see more than 100 young women from
different parts of southern Africa in one space, openly sharing their
frustrations, hopes and dreams without fear or inhibition. If more
spaces like that were created, we would be able to realise a lot of
potential that is among young women.
Chinowaita:
As a leader, what are the challenges that you have encountered
working with young women? How have you overcome these?
Chinowaita:
What is the value of such spaces for young women nationally,
regionally and internationally?
Mazingi:
I have encountered a number of challenges working with young
women, which I, however, was able to overcome. I have come to
realise that young women tend to be overly emotional and get
embroiled in petty jealousies, fighting for recognition. I have had to
deal with that and find ways to get around this when working with
young women.
Mazingi:
The value of such spaces cannot be overemphasised. It enabled
young women from different countries and sectors to meet in the
same space and to share ideas and thoughts on women’s rights.
This enabled the young feminists and activists to identify areas
of synergy in their work and aspirations. Young people shared
strategies and solutions to the challenges they face, and learned
from each other. Globally, such spaces are believed to amplify
young people’s voices, and give them confidence to speak out and
be heard.
My second biggest challenge has been interacting with young
women who are so marginalised that they do not have homes or
families to support their education. Similarly, I have had to engage
with young women who were forced by circumstances to get
married early because they needed somewhere to stay and someone
to look after them.
The one thing I found helpful in dealing with such cases is to consult
my mentors. I bring them in to assist because sometimes the
pressure is too much for me. I also get into dialogue with the young
women and help them think through possible options around their
particular challenge.
Chinowaita:
What are the trends around youth participation in sectors such as
politics and the economy?
Mazingi:
The youth stage in general can be regarded as a period of
vulnerability: young people attempt to enhance their educational
and vocational credentials and gain a foothold in the labourmarket,
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develop adult identities and create new lifestyles, form new
friendships, establish a degree of financial independence and
perhaps move away from the family home. In each of these
spheres, some girls and young women are far more vulnerable than
others, owing to a structural lack of resources, primarily in terms of
education, vocational training, health and housing. Those girls and
young women exposed to a poor quality of life tend to experience
higher levels of vulnerability; young women from rural areas and
slums are seriously affected.
While there are pieces of legislation in place to advance
participation of women in politics and decision-making positions,
the quotas are often not implemented. There are more young men
than women participating in politics. Women generally perceive
politics as the preserve of men because of the violence associated
with politics. There have been many challenges when it comes to
youth participation in politics. While young men can move freely
during campaigns, the same cannot be said of young women who
are usually confined to their houses.
On the economic front, young people are marginalised, as there
aren’t sufficient funds and interventions aimed at supporting their
programmes. The Ministry of Youth operates a youth fund that
provides US$1,000 per project. But what businesses can one start
with that amount? And for young people to obtain a loan from the
bank they need collateral and this is non-existent. The national
economic framework as presented in the national budget does not
focus on the youth. Today’s young people view economics as a
complicated subject; as a myth they don’t appreciate.
We have witnessed the feminisation of poverty in southern Africa
over the past decade. Women are often tied to the home, doing
care work that is not recognised and not even reflected in national
accounts, let alone in regional and global economic reporting. If
women get jobs, their incomes tend to be lower than those of men
because of their low levels of education or the undervaluing of
their professions. More than 50 percent of women are operating
in the informal sectors in Zimbabwe. Most of these operations are
very small because they don’t have collateral to borrow money
from banks to upscale their businesses. For young women who are
married, the property is often registered in the husband’s name due
to the patriarchal nature of our societies. Women’s property rights
should therefore be enshrined in national constitutions.
In terms of how these patterns can be addressed, countries in
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southern Africa should ensure that women not only achieve
universal primary education but also go right up to vocational
training since this is the cornerstone of women’s empowerment.
Zimbabwe has a Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM)
policy that caters for under-privileged children by paying their
school fees. While the policy spells out that 50 percent of the
beneficiaries should be girls, the question is whether the scheme is
well resourced and whether the quota system is being implemented.
More important is whether there is a tracking mechanism to ensure
that the policy is being adhered to.
On the political front, there is a need to come up with a quota
system and move away from violence. I am talking not only about
physical violence such as rape and sexual assault, but also other
forms such as emotional and economic violence that causes low selfesteem and prevents effective participation of young women.
Natural resources should also be protected for future generations.
We have abundant resources in Africa that our youths could benefit
from today and in the future.
Chinowaita:
Give us a critique of the policies for youth development in
southern Africa.
Mazingi:
I will focus on my contribution around the Zimbabwean National Youth
Policy – a process that I have been involved in. Zimbabwe enacted a
youth policy in 2000, which is very laudable. My organisation has been
pushing for a policy review because the policy is now outdated and is no
longer responding to the current realities and challenges of youth. The
inception of the Inclusive Government in Zimbabwe gave us another
window of opportunity and we have been engaging the Ministry of
Youth Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment to do consultations
on the National Youth Policy. We have visited all 10 provinces of
Zimbabwe doing the consultation process.
The major inputs coming from the youth, and I think it applies to
all youth policies that we have across southern Africa, are that the
policies should be gender sensitive, accessible and youth friendly.
Youth input must be sought on any policies that affect them. Sexual
and reproductive health and rights should be included in youth
policies. During the Zimbabwe Youth Policy consultation review,
we observed that health and environment issues were lumped
together, making the issues very general. It would be important
to separate health and environment issues and also emphasise
strategies to combat HIV and AIDS, which is a major challenge
for young women. The HIV and AIDS scourge has hit southern
Africa hard with young women bearing the brunt. Girls between
ages 16 and 25 are six times more likely to be infected than boys in
Zimbabwe. Cultural barriers such as poverty make young woman
more vulnerable to HIV infection.
A youth policy should be made available in every country’s major
languages, as well as in Braille for the visually impaired and in audio
so that it can be easily understood.
While the Zimbabwean Youth policy outlines that there should
be 50 percent participation in all programmes by young women,
this has to be included and reflected in the National Action Plan.
Currently it’s not.
Lucy Mazingi is the Director for Youth
Empowerment and Transformation Trust,
a youth organisation in Zimbabwe. She
won the award for the Best Director for
2009 in Zimbabwe.
Margaret Chinowaita does free lance
reporting for a number of on line
publications on the situation in Zimbabwe
with particular emphasis on politics,
development, gender and HIV and AIDS.
Youth-related projects are invariably missing from many policies in
southern African countries, as the policies tend to be generalised.
I would say that the will to work with youths in southern Africa is
there among governments, but there is no dedicated plan and
mechanism to translate this will into reality. For instance, Zimbabwe
has an indigenisation policy which entails that Zimbabweans should
own 51 percent of all companies that have a threshold of more
that US$500,000. While this is a noble idea, there is no plan and
mechanism to actualise it, and as such it is difficult for a youth,
especially a young woman, to raise capital to purchase 51 percent of
shares in a company when they can’t even access resources to start a
small company.
Chinowaita:
What is your vision for the women’s movement in Zimbabwe and
in southern Africa?
Mazingi:
My vision is of a women’s movement that addresses the intergenerational gaps that currently exist. This can be achieved through
multi-generational discussions, and by challenging every woman
to mentor at least one girl. There is potential for a vibrant women’s
movement in Zimbabwe and we need it to sustain the gains that have
already been made by the women’s movement post-independence.
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Volume 1
Issue 2
September 2011
BUWA! is published by the Open Society Initiative for
Southern Africa (OSISA)
© Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) 2011
Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)
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PO Box 678, Wits 2050
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Tel: +27 (0) 11 587 5000
Fax: +27 (0) 11 587 5099
Design and layout: Garage East
Cover photograph: Nikki Brand
Photography: Nikki Brand
Production: DS Print Media
Title concept: BUWA! is an adaption of the Suthu ‘bua’ meaning ‘speak’.
The opinions expressed in this journal are those of the individual authors
and do not necessarily represent the views of OSISA or its board.
We appreciate feedback on this publication.
Write to the Editor at: [email protected]
editorial team
Executive Editor: Sisonke Msimang
Editor: Alice Kanengoni
Editorial team: Naomi Hleziphi Nyanungo; Mazuba Haanyama; Tsitsi Mukamba; Vicci Tallis; Yaliwe Clarke
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The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) is a
growing African institution committed to deepening democracy,
protecting human rights and enhancing good governance in
southern Africa. OSISA’s vision is to promote and sustain the ideals,
values, institutions and practice of open society, with the aim of
establishing a vibrant southern African society in which people, free
from material and other deprivation, understand their rights and
responsibilities and participate democratically in all spheres of life.
Buwa! is published by OSISA and is intended to spark debate on
critical issues. Feel free to join in the discussion, send your thoughts
to [email protected] or comment on the website: www.osisa.org

What it means to be a young woman in southern Africa

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