Greetings from Betty Makoni Director and Founder of Girl Child Network as well Local Lead focal Point Person for Grassroots Organisations Operating Together In Sisterhood (GROOTS Zimbabwe)

I am now in Mexico and am shocked with the news that the French authorities allegedly deported two grassroots women from Zimbabwe who were on their way to Mexico for the AIDS conference taking place until 9 August 2008

Last week our staff members went to the French embassy and insisted that we needed transit visas for France and the French authorities in Harare told them and insisted that there was no need for transit visas for Zimbabweans and that the two women could leave and would not have problems.South African Airways cleared the two women at the Harare International Airport and the two women were even allowed to travel all the way to France on Air France on Thursday last week only to be deported back to Johannesburg on Friday .

What has left us shocked is the unlawful kind of detention of the two women at the Johannesburg airport and the interrogation they have been subjected to by authorities at the French International airport.The two women cannot speak French or English and they have letters from our organisation and AIDS Conference organisers and GROOTS International requesting for assistance and the letters are very clear that they are part of a grassroots women team attending the AIDS conference to share their experiences

What has pained me most is that for one of the women she is handicapped having suffered polio as a child.She cannot walk and she was coming here to join sessions on HIV and AIDS and the handicapped and also she wanted to speak to the world about the struggles of poor rural women and the daily struggles they go through.The world is still waiting to hear from her here in Mexico .For me to understand that the French authorities denied her a transit visa entry for a life time opportunity is the most painful story in my life

Now the other issue is that despite all the required papers the two women have ,they have disappeared and we cannot locate them.The last time some people saw them they were at the Johannesburg airport and my appeal to authorities of France and the two airlines is that there is no need for them to punish the women holding them like semi slaves after denying them a life time opportunity to be at a conference where they could have gained a lot and even taken such opportunities to other women in the world.We plead with all men holding these women to set them free and return them to Zimbabwe .My appeal is that they stop harassing them because they were not going to France but to Mexico and since they have lost so much please set them free because right now they are at the Johannesburg airport

Please can anyone in the world appeal to French authorities in Paris ,we want them to know such treatment of women passing through their borders to important conferences like the AIDS conference taking place in Mexico deserve better treatment especially if the women are handicapped

Please pass on this appeal to anyone you feel will help free the women who have been denied a life time opportunity to be in Mexico .The pain and trauma the women suffered is beyond comprehension.I understand women from Cameroon went through the same and my plea is that HIV and AIDS is no new subject and anyone seeing letters stating women are travelling to do something about HIV and AIDS must be touched and act immediately

Lets all treat women humanely and especially those who are poor,marginalised and handicapped .They cant do much about their situation but honestly we can help!
The two women were denied the right to travel because they are poor and illiterate and many borders have allowed many robbers traffickers etc but for poor harmless women the struggles to travel decently is not allowed

Anyone who can help on this matter please contact me on 52 55 33 0 535 and ask for Limota or Betty Makoni

Ever seen a four every word punctuated title ?
Question mark? comma, full stop .exclamation mark !in one
Women  lives full of thus
Patriarchy domineering , feminism under backlash
Women have negotiated, still negotiate, will ever negotiate
Promises promised, never premised
Spaces shrunk, voices thwarted
Seems this men`s world, makes and breaks laws
Makes and breaks promises
Women lives punctuated ,back and forth 
 
Question mark on promises?
Heads of states made promises
To  sign, ratify, domesticate
Protocols, conventions, declarations
Declared and vowed, Solemn declaration 2004
Promised everything, premised none
AU protocol on women`s rights ,only eighteen ratified
Never domesticated , fear men will be domesticated
Is it thirty or fifty,  women representation in  decision making ?
Increasing to fifty as if thirty premised
Economic empowerment when vending outlawed, poor women illegal
Women booted out informal sector, all borders sealed
Promises are just promised , professed, never premised 
Given  promises, women choices
Comma on choices, women move on, pose, choose
Male or female heads of states for 21st century,
Voting  more males to promise or females to deliver
To involve men or women
Men involved as presidents, pastors, ministers, school heads, pilots
Their choices, women  domesticated
Their promises ,their choices, men pose ,choose
Women promised  love , next day in cold blood
Promised domestic love affair, given domestic violence
Promised domestic violence law, no guaranteed custodial sentence 
 
Full stop for women spaces.
Not negotiable, just women .Full stop. Ndi-i. Sealed.
By women. For Women. In Women. Through Women.
With women.  From women. To women .On women.
Beijing Platform for Action. For women.
Women caucuses, coalitions, clubs, organizations, associations.
Ministries for women affairs. The affairs are for women. Full stop.
Girls only clubs .Girls spaces. Full stop.
Feminist theory, ideology, practice, belief, school. Full stop.
No more interrogation, `Hey! Why girl child and not boy child, did men approve?

Women activists used to labels, to stereotypes, 
'Family breakers, loose, western, prostitutes, Ms'
As if perpetrators ever knit families
As if female prostitute is with no male prostitute
Men wine and dine, rape, cheat morally correct wives, no interrogation to date
All actions justified, defended for they are a sovereign species
Women spaces ,women choices. Fully stop. Ndi-i. Sealed 
In those spaces there be loud women voices.
Exclamation means claim thy space.
Women rights ,human rights.
Claim gender equality ,equity  too
Speedy access to drugs, HIV  feminized pandemic
Harmful cultural practices, total elimination whatever justification
Women pastors and priests, majority to congregate women
Fifty fifty women in every parliament, 21st century for women
Unless claimed promises remain promised! 
Now see !!

Title questions, comma-poses, fully stops and claims!!!!
Women lives titled thus
Where are the promises? Are men ever suitors?
Punctuate women lives with comma to pose and choose
Women spaces are women spaces. Fully stop. Ndi-i ndi-i.
Voices!!! Promises, promised and professed  not premised!!!
Women empowerment strategies thus
Question, pose, fully stop, claim space voice and choice
Promises? Choices,  Spaces. Voices for women!! 

*Betty Makoni is a Woman Activist Zimbabwe.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org