In the same week that Zimbabwe’s Vice-President Joice Mujuru was in Bloemfontein to attend the launch of the Progressive Women’s Movement of South Africa — which aims to build on the point of view that women’s rights are also human rights — 63 women, arrested on February 14, appeared in court in Zimbabwe for ”marching in the streets and handing out roses”.
Speaking at the launch, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said: ”We have to forge alliances with men who understand that there is no justice for anyone if there is no justice for women.”
The 63 are part of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) movement whose leader Jenni Williams has been arrested 27 times in the past two years.
”We were also arrested for demonstrating against the skyrocketing of school fees in May,” Williams said, adding that under Mujuru ”we have not seen any relief. We have seen the situation getting worse and worse.”
Mujuru is seen as President Robert Mugabe’s candidate to succeed him when he retires in 2008.
Lawyer Beatrice Mthetwa, who is representing the 63, said that when members of Woza were arrested they had their ”bras and underwear taken away” and some spent days ”without sanitary wear”. She bemoaned a situation where women ”cannot even march down the street”.
On Mujuru’s work for female emancipation, Mthetwa quipped: ”She has done a lot, but for Zanu-PF women.” When Mujuru was appointed in December 2004 she committed herself to promoting women’s interests.
Movement for Democratic Change MP Priscilla Misihairambwi-Mushonga said one of the saddest ironies in the struggle for the empowerment of women in Zimbabwe is that the livelihoods of women were systematically and brutally destroyed by a state with a female vice-president.
Operation Murambatsvina, an exercise that was launched in May last year, saw the destruction of the informal sector, dominated by women, in the name of ridding the country of filth. ”If she had an occasion to stand up for women this was the occasion but she did not,” said Misihairambwi-Mushonga.
Zimbabwean women are sleeping in the open, at bus and rail stations in neighbouring countries, and are bringing foreign currency into the country. In spite of this, said Misihairambwi-Mushonga, these women were indecently searched by members of the National Youth Service at the country’s ports of entry.
”Every month in my constituency, a young girl is not going to school for five days because she is having her period,” she said.
Because of the high cost of sanitary pads and tampons women have resorted to using leaves and newspaper. Earlier this year the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions collected 12-million sanitary pads for distribution in Zimbabwe. The congress was unable to bring them into the country, though, as the Revenue Authority refused to waive a US$7 000 duty because the congress is not registered as a charitable organisation.