Zimbabwe is lagging behind other countries in terms of promotion of female participation in political decision-making, women’s rights group Women in Politics Support Unit (WIPSU) said Saturday in Harare.
Non-governmental organization Women in Politics Support Unit (WIPSU) accused the parties represented in Zimbabwe’s nine-month-old coalition government of paying lip service with regards to advancing women’s participation in decision-making processes.
Only four women are part of the 35-member power-sharing cabinet, way short of the equal representation of women in decision-making that Zimbabwe signed onto at a regional summit in September 2008.
Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development, which stipulates that women should hold equal positions to men in both public and private sectors by 2015.
Apart from the four female cabinet ministers, other four women were appointed as deputy ministers although their roles are largely ceremonial.
According to the Zimbabwean legislative framework, they cannot be acting ministers in the absence of their superiors.
WIPSU said a study conducted between March 2008 and September this year revealed that President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s main Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) party and Deputy Premier Arthur Mutambara’s breakaway MDC faction were just the same when it comes to the treatment of female politicians.
The group said while the three parties claimed to believe in the core values of equality, justice, empowerment, non-discrimination, freedom and equity, none of them had a substantive gender policy.
“Only MDC-T had developed a gender and women empowerment policy by the second phase of the study.
The MDC claimed they had a policy however most of those interviewed were not aware of it. ZANU PF claimed the country’s National Gender Policy is the ZANU PF policy since it went through ZANU PF processes before being adopted as the national policy,” WIPSU said.
The report coincided with the launch of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence which runs between November 25 and December 10 in the country.
Source African Press Agency
