41 | Rights of women

National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) Draft Constitution (2001)

Every woman has full and equal dignity of the person with men and this includes -
1. equal opportunities in political, economic and social activities; and
2. equal rights in civil law.
All laws, customs and cultures that infringe the rights of women are prohibited.
Women have the right to affirmative action for the purpose of redressing the imbalances created by history, tradition or custom.

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16 February 2010 - 12:26pm — Anonymous (not verified)

The rights of women

Zimbabwe is one of the few countires in the world where women are still marginalised. I believe the constitution needs to be changed to give women rights over their children, make them equal partners in marriage and in rights over their children.

In Zimbabwe, the child still belongs to the father! Looking at the abundance of irresponsible fathers out there, no wonder we have Zimbabwean men as some of the few men who are just difficult to deal with, complacency and pride based on very few concrete evidence. Its a wonder that Zimbabwean men have been made to believe that the ability to father children and pay lobola is the highest test of manhood. Most of our men graduate to manhood but very few are responsible fathers, just look at all the children being raised by single mothers and still the man is given all the legal rights over the child. Most countries have changed this law to allow the woman of an unmarried couple to have legal rights over the child, very few women would keep their kids away from their fathers anyway.

It amazes me that for a woman to have legal rights over the child, she has to declare the child fatherless. Its pathetic that we have a law that we know doesnt work and is against women's global rights, yet we keep it and encourage anyone who feels the law is unfair to have kids and not tell the fathers. It is also infringement of international children's rights, a child has the right to have both a father and mother, and it shouldnt be a disadvantage to have both parents registered on their documents.

Why a married woman cant have legal rights over the child escapes me. If parents are married, they should have equal rights over the kid, if they are not, the parent with custody should have legal rights. I have seen women who have single handedly raised their children but cant get passports for their children, because the father's name appears on the birth certificate so it means the two parents are married, what skewed reasoning, so divorced from reality in Zimbabwe.

I think as a nation, we should come to a stage where we encourage our men to find their manhood in something of substance other than having kids and getting married/paying lobola and having dominion over, and taking ownership of their kids and wives. I believe in life, there are better levels of achievement. I lament as I watch our men get tortured by the realisation that women cant really be bought, yet they still hang on to that sinking ship. Paying lobola (which is negligible really compared to anyone's income) and believing that will give them powers over their wives was never proven true even in those olden days. No wonder men now feel so confused by the reality around them, they are failing to cope and most end up on self-destruction paths.

Social workers need to educate society and men and make them realise that times have since changed and they have to realise what is really going on, accept it and look for ways to cope with the change.

3 February 2010 - 2:30am — James Watadza (not verified)

then correct the new imbalance

In Africa, women do not marry. They do not pay lobola, or bring cash and cattle to the parents of the man...therefore, if, through affirmative action, you are going to take away the means of income from the man, it is only fair that the new imbalance be corrected: ban lobola and any form of dowry, to protect men.

We cannot accept a Western norm and force it on a people who have their own norms and force them to live with the consequences....just to please or conform with Western values.

African women will not get into marriage with unemployed African men. Take this example, generalized, and microcosmic, there are 10 jobs...10 boys and 10 girls. in the old sysytem the 10 boys got the jobs, and married the 10 girls....resulting in an even distribution of wealth.

Now, however, due to affirmative action, 5 girls get 5 jobs, and 5 boys get the other 5 jobs. Because no African girl would be seen dead with an jobless man ...so they marry the 5 employed boys. leaving 5 unemployed boys to marry 5 unemployed girls.

Ever wondered why there is an ever widening gap between the poor and the rich? Theres your generalized illustration...

You cannot force western morm on people who still think, live and base their decisions on their own was and expect stability!

2 March 2010 - 8:44pm — David Gondokondo (not verified)

Forcing of Western norms

It is true that we should preserve our norms. The fact is that we are greed. When we find that western norms benefit us we go there and we also take African norms when they benefit us. In this developing world we cannot live only on our cultures. We must interact with other people and copy from them what is right. If you look at yourself you are far much improved than your people of previous generations. We expect our children to develop better that us. I wouldn't happy to be better than my offspring.