The Sunday Mail
Hon Sithembiso Nyoni
The annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) conference was held in New York last month. Zimbabwe sent a delegation led by Women and Youth Affairs Minister Sithembiso Nyoni to join attendees from 192 countries. Our reporter Sharon Munjenjema spoke to the minister on her return from the event that ran under the theme “Challenges and Opportunities in Achieving Gender Equity and the Empowerment of Rural Women and Girls”. We publish Minister Nyoni’s responses in her own words.
As the Zimbabwe delegation to the conference, we had intended to take many rural women with us.
These women applied for visas, but unfortunately they were denied the travel documents by the American embassy.
We don’t know why the visas were rejected, it was their policy, but they (US embassy in Zimbabwe) just said it was a directive from Washington DC.
A lot of countries were affected by this directive, it was not just Zimbabwe.
So I want the Zimbabwean women living in rural areas to know it was not about them, it affected all rural women through-out the world.
Kenya talked of the issue of leaving their rural women behind and so did Uganda, India and so forth.
This conference took place over two weeks. The first week was the official opening and we had readings of ministerial statements, interactive dialogues and side events.
The second week was characterised by negotiations based on the ministerial statements, dialogues and side events of the previous week.
The negotiations were done so that we come up with agreed conclusions.
As Zimbabwe, we were very privileged to have the First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa as part of our delegation.
The delegation also comprised Minister of State for Manicaland Province Cde Monica Mutsvangwa, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Mabel Chinomona, Hon Paurina Mpariwa and the Zimbabwe Gender Commission chairperson (Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe).
We also had civic society representatives who came with us.
The good thing is that we prepared in advance before going to New York.
There were a lot of meetings prior to CSW, so when we got there I was happy, as the leader of the delegation, that we spoke with one voice. We had a side event where we were led by the First Lady. It was well attended by Zimbabweans and members from other countries, both men and women.
It made a great impact on the whole conference because we were the first country to push for and give concrete evidence-based results on the importance of intangible resources for the empowerment of women.
Our intangibles included health, which our First Lady is pioneering, as well as education and training (skills development).
The outcome was that even at the negotiations, the intangible means of production and intangible resources for women empowerment became major sub-themes.
So our side event really made a mark on the whole conference.
To explain the side event there is need to give more detail as to how the conference runs.
There is a main auditorium meeting which is chaired by the chairperson of CSW, where everybody gathers.
But each country or organisation can have side events in smaller halls where they present specific sub-themes or topics of interest related to the main theme.
So in Zimbabwe, our side event was centred on the means of empowering women and the tangible resources we spoke of are land and equipment, etcetera.
But a lot of people leave out the intangible which is education, training and health.
As Zimbabweans we were saying you cannot empower an unhealthy woman.
The empowerment of an uneducated woman is limited because her sphere of comprehending issues is also limited. So the focus was on the intangible means of production.
As Zimbabwe, our impact was felt by the whole conference. We were happy that as a country we were able to lead. It was noted that women and girls need education and health to be empowered and to propel themselves.
Empowerment has to be sustainable and you have to engage the empowered person and she has to be the custodian for empowerment.
If a woman is not educated they will keep on depending on someone else to give them or teach them new concepts and researches.
They won’t be able to research for themselves, they cannot surf the internet, network on cyberspace or understand their horizon. In short, their empowerment will be limited.
Zimbabwe also initiated the change in the narrative. The theme stated “rural women” and we said to them, what is rural is not the woman, but the environment.
So the narrative needed to be changed to say “women living in rural areas”.
When we talk about the condition of rural women, usually people talk about the woman and not the condition and this is why we failed to bring a change because our focus is on the wrong target.
The woman, yes, in terms of the intangible but the tangible is the rural area.
Is there water? Is there transport? Is there communication? Is this woman in possession of land? Does she have access to money?
Those are the things that the world usually look for, but they look for that in the wrong target, the woman, rather than the rural area.
So if we reverse this narrative, we will develop the rural area for women who are educated to live there and earn a living.
We also had a session where we had recognition of women and girls living with disabilities. We also had discussions on widows and how they need to be empowered in order for them to carry on with their lives. Most widows are in desperate situations economically and socially.
So we looked at measures and ways to equip them economically as well as legally so that they claim their rights.
In short, Zimbabwe really made a mark at the event. Zimbabwe’s thinking influenced the narrative of the whole conference at the negotiations. For the first time in history, there was separation between tangible and intangible means of production and means of empowering women.
Agreed resolutions from the conference are not yet out.
We are going to call a big meeting in the country this month for all those who attended the conference to report to the nation. Each sector will give its recommendations that are applicable to the country, that is, Government, Parliament and civil society.
