Women having control over choices about their lives, including their sexuality, is crucial in the fight against HIV and something Virginia Muwanigwa, chairperson of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, is keen to highlight.
Women having control over choices about their lives, including their sexuality, is crucial in the fight against HIV and something Virginia Muwanigwa, chairperson of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, is keen to highlight.
“When women are empowered and they are committed to social and gender justice, this translates into social agency to work against discriminatory practices beginning in the family and household, the community, nation and beyond,” Muwanigwa says.
“The empowerment of women manifests itself through increased voice, more choices and control over their lives and those of their children.”
But making this happen in the face of cultural practices which award most decision-making powers to men, and thereby subordinating women, can be challenging.
Women and HIV
“Research has shown that some women become complicit in harmful cultural practices such as marrying off a child, sometimes to their rapist, because they are dependent on the men while making those decisions,” says Muwanigwa.
There is an urgent need to tackle these issues which put women and girls at greater risk of HIV, as well as presenting other life challenges.
Patience Ziramba, editor of Priority Projects Publishing, which has produced several books on women and gender development, says that the first step in protecting women against HIV is to empower them and appreciate that they can make firm decisions for themselves.
“Mothers are known to be closer to their children and are generally unlikely to endanger their children by marrying them off to some old man,” she says. “However, because women are not firmly empowered, they end up conforming to the demands of their husbands.”
According to Ziramba, it is also about empowering women in relation to their sexuality, as many women have little say in what happens during sexual intercourse, such as the use of protection.
Child marriage
There are many reported cases in which women have fallen victim to actions undermining and violating their human rights such as forced early marriage and rape. Girls Not Brides – a global organisation working to address child marriage – reports that in Zimbabwe it’s estimated that 31 per cent of girls are married before their eighteenth birthday.
Several reasons have been identified as causes of these forms of abuse including weakly formulated policies – often enacted by male politicians – which leave women, and especially young girls, vulnerable.
For example, an article published by The Herald newspaper on 9 June reported that lawmakers are “worried by what appears to be the trivialisation of child sex abuse by the courts, with the age of consent in Zimbabwe now effectively 12 years.”
Age of consent
Although the Zimbabwean constitution is clear on the age of consent to sexual activity, which is 16, legal developments over the past few years have seen child sex predators getting away with community service sentences and other lesser charges.
The constitution defines a child as “every boy and girl under the age of eighteen years” and states that every child has the right to be “protected from economic and sexual exploitation, from child labour, and from maltreatment, neglect or any form of abuse.”
The development around lowering the age of consent to 12 has however left children, especially girls, exposed to sexual abuse, rape, early marriage and at high risk of contracting HIV and related diseases.
Children’s rights
For a girl, underage sex – which is the prime cause of teen pregnancies – can mean the end of her education as the Zimbabwean education sector does not encourage pregnant girls to take normal classes in government schools.
Also, according to the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, “married girls are more likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and AIDS than unmarried girls and are often powerless to demand the use of contraception or protection during sex.”
It is therefore imperative that, as part of the fight against HIV women are empowered, and preventing early marriage is prioritised. A report by the United Nations Population Fund – Marrying too young: end child marriage – also emphasises how girls themselves must be involved and empowered in seeking a solution to these issues.
In Zimbabwe, it will likely take a strong and concerted effort from civil society, to really see change. As Muwanigwa says: “Communities can raise awareness and build knowledge through education on the causes, extent and impact of the violation of children’s rights. They can also push for the alignment of laws, policies and practices with the letter and spirit of the constitution which says that anyone under 18 years is a child.”
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