The Sunday Mail
Online Reporter
A coalition of development and women’s rights organisations has launched a campaign – #EndViolenceVoteForHer – to support women candidates contesting in the August 23 elections.
It will also lobby for a violence-free environment throughout the electoral process.
As part of the support, women candidates have at their disposal free legal services for grievances that may require legal recourse, toll free lines to call and report any forms of violence, and provision of female election observers to look out for their issues.
The #EndViolenceVoteForHer campaign is being spearheaded by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), Hivos, Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) and Gender Links.
Also part of the campaign are Zimbabwe Institute, Women in Politics Support Unit (WIPSU), Women Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE) and Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCOZ).
Zimbabwe Institute’s operations and programmes manager Ms Belinda Ncube said the campaign was inspired by the worrying decline in women candidates.
This is despite the work done to advance gender equality in political representation and participation in leadership positions.
“Violence against women is the major contributor for women shying away from participating in electoral processes.
“Under this campaign, we are advocating for a violence-free environment throughout the electoral process,” she said.
Women constitute about 11 percent of the candidates in this year’s election, a drop from 14 percent in 2018.
Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe head of politics and decision-making cluster Ms Siphathisiwe Moyo said the organisation will be fielding women-only observers.
“The women observer missions will be on the lookout for issues that affect women candidates.
“Previously, we had challenges when we needed gender disaggregated data, so with women observers, we should be able to get more of that,” Ms Moyo said.
Apart from violence, an electoral system that is heavily skewed against women was also cited as one of the major barriers for women’s participation.
The highly competitive first-past-the-post system, Ms Moyo added, disadvantaged women candidates.
WALPE media and publications officer Ms Helen Kadirire called on the police to apprehend perpetrators of political violence and maintain peace.
“There is a lack of political will to field female candidates. None of the political parties fielded at least 30 percent women candidates.
“And those women who choose to fight for the seats are then exposed to violence,” she said.
In its efforts to support women’s participation in politics, UN Women’s governance and women’s political participation advisor Ms Gorett Mudzongo said the agency was supporting the Zimbabwe Gender Commission to conduct a gender observatory as a mechanism to monitor gender issues during the harmonised elections.
“We will also be conducting a national survey on violence against women, which will begin soon,” she said, highlighting one of the numerous initiatives the agency is carrying out in supporting women’s participation in politics.
