cc As Zimbabwe celebrates 29 years of independence, Nyaradzai Mugaragumbo-Gumbonzvanda honours the ordinary women who fought for freedom and life with dignity, and reflects on the meaning of the liberation struggle both for her late mother Mbuya Rozaria Dizha and for Zimbabwean women of different generations. Mbuya Dizha ‘gave her daughters and sons to the liberation’, provided food and financial contributions for freedom fighters and was among the many thousands of rural women who voted for the first time in 1980, her contribution to creating ‘a new nation’. While the early eighties ‘were sweet moments for us, as girls old enough to understand the…dynamics brought by this wave of change and its possibilities,’ writes Mugaragumbo-Gumbonzvanda, ‘today’s young Zimbabwean girls are desperately looking for education, employment and hope.’

Nyaradzai Mugaragumbo-Gumbonzvanda, Regional Programme Director for the United Nations Development Fund for Women in Eastern Africa, pays tribute to the everyday heroines of the African continent. It’s not only the women in parliament that need recognition, but also those in local authorities, in health boards, water boards, education committees, budget committees and in the home, she writes.

Rosemary called me five times this week encouraging me to write something for International Women’s Day, 2006. I was not sure what to write, say or dream about! Women in decision-making, public office, the numbers, the politics, the influence they have or do not have! I was not sure. I woke up inspired. Yes, I can indeed share my thoughts, dreams and give a eulogy to African heroines, and especially African women who continue to meet the challenges everyday, who are creating change and whose voices, views, energies and creativity is never recognized, counted or valued.

First a tribute is to my own mother, Rozaria, who gave birth to more than a dozen children, a 3rd grade graduate who sent us all to school, and lived as a widow for more than 27 years. She was never a parliamentarian or a councilor, but she was on 24-hour call in her community, supporting, contributing and advising. She sat in the local school board and was a leader in her local church. She met many, many, many challenges in life, but she also created change. She influenced the family, the community and the school. She died a leader and a queen of many hearts.

Through her work we continue to struggle for justice, for equality, for rights, for dignity and for a life free from want and fear.

Many women in Africa are like my own mother. They assert themselves within the space they have. They know what is good for their children, community and country and strive for the same. They are heroines whose names are inscribed in our hearts but whose leadership, wisdom and contribution is not counted nor recognized. We continue to wallow in the pain of the low numbers in parliament and in public office. If women are not in these public offices, they are in their houses and communities meeting the challenges and trying to make a difference. They are also trying to access public office! Just like every woman is a worker, every woman is a decision maker.

The question is how do we translate women’s skills, passion and commitment to public expression and presence in public office? Why do we have a fixation with the apex, instead of diffusing the power from the apex to the other and more important levels of governance?

Transformational leadership with women must equally be about changing the value base. It must be about the totality of women’s space and eulogizing every space in which women are making decisions. In public office, we must continue to struggle for gender parity, but not at the expense of celebrating where women are already trying to influence change and meeting many struggles.

On this international women’s day, I call on the recognition of women in decision-making beyond the numbers of women in parliament. I call on the world and Africa to measure where it matters most for women: women in local authorities, in health boards, water boards, education committees, budget committees. Since most women are the ministers of finance (some say “cashiers”) at home, why not in government, why not chair finance committees in parliament and in the local boards?

I give a tribute to every woman today, as you continue to make decisions about your family, your life and posterity. This happens in the face of discrimination, poverty, wars, HIV & AIDS and even exclusion. Women are carrying even more than half the sky, today; especially in the part of the world we call Africa.

* The writer is the Regional Programme Director for United Nations Development Fund for Women in Eastern Africa.

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Africa has just emerged from a review of the progress made ten years after the Beijing Conference on women whose theme was equality, peace and development. This November, the world will commence the 16 days campaign against gender-based violence, an annual event that remains more relevant today especially with the reality of conflict, wars and political violence, which seem to accompany most elections in Africa. Violence against women and especially sexual violence remains a gross violation of rights of women irrespective of the global regional and national commitments made to address this issue. Women continue to organize and advocate for concrete and lasting solutions to eliminating gender based and sexual violence.

Around 100 women met recently in Kigali as policy makers, leaders, experts, citizens, daughters, mothers, sisters, care -givers, innovators and survivors of violence. They also met as problem-solvers, decision-makers, and real contributors of real solutions to the challenges facing the great lakes region. This was the Regional Women’s Meeting of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, organized and facilitated under the auspices of the United Nations and the Africa Union, this October 2004. Representing the core countries of Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, women’s voices echoed over and over again the dominant concern of sexual violence against women and especially the use of rape as a weapon of war.

Against the backdrop of the search for solutions were horrific stories of rape and sexual abuse of women and girls in Darfur, Northern Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. The stories of rape as part of the genocide experience took on a magnified, almost tangible presence with a journey to the Kigali Genocide Museum. “Not only are we raped, infected with HIV & AIDS and ripped of our livelihoods, we remain with limited platform for sharing such experiences,” a woman delegate from DRC lamented. The stories of the abuse of refugee women in Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia formed parts of a terrible story that needed telling over and over.

At the centre of the experience-sharing, the search for long standing solutions underlined a resolve of commitment and action to ensure that zero-tolerance for sexual violence and rape must be embraced as a key element of peace and security, and in this context that the African Union Gender Equality Declaration and Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa Declaration as well as the Security Council Resolution 1325 must be implemented with immediacy. The women called on the member states to accelerate ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Women’s Rights in Africa as a critical step towards implementation.

The direct relationship between insecurity, sexual violence and HIV & AIDS vulnerability and risk for women and girls grounded in systemic gender inequalities; and the power dynamics between men and women’s levels of control of arms and economic resources resonated with many in the region. The illegal exploitation of the region’s natural resources and the attendant insecurities it creates for the ordinary citizenry, and especially women, went to the depth of the issues at hand.

Women of the Great Lakes Region asserted their place in economic development and reconstruction of their families, communities and nations. They claimed their right to ownership and control over productive resources and especially land, property and income. This, the women argued is an issue of right, but also a long term solution towards provision of the capacities, resources and opportunities necessary for women’s empowerment.

In their Kigali Declaration (Editors note: Read the Kigali Declaration in the Women and Gender section of this edition.), the women appreciated the positive steps taken in increasing the number of women in decision making, with some of the countries almost reaching the AU threshold of gender parity, and several implementing affirmative action policies. However, women's role in the peace and security sector, as well as in the strategic institutions of economic governance, remains almost negligible. It is by having women and gender sensitive men at the negotiating table, in the demobilization commissions, the border commissions, conflict early warning institutions and others, that the issues of sexual violence and especially rape will be responded to with the seriousness it deserves - as a gross violation of human rights, a crime against humanity and a destructive force to whole societies. Women are asking for sexual violence, HIV & AIDS, and representation of women in decision making to be engrained in the Summit Declaration of Principles due to be adopted November during the Heads of State and Summit meeting in Tanzania.

The women of the Great Lakes in their wisdom, their creative energies and innovation affirmed their commitment to engage, influence, act, effectively participate, share, network and contribute towards a violent free, peaceful and secure region where the dignity and rights of men and women, girls and boys becomes the ethos of development and reconstruction. In this great struggle for justice and rights, I stand in solidarity with the spirit of the Kigali dialogue. If substantive progress is made towards achieving the rights of women within the Beijing +10 framework, there will be substantive hope in achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

* Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda is the Regional Programme Director for the United Nations Development Fund for Women in Eastern Africa. Contact email: [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected]