‘There is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls. If we want to succeed in our efforts to build a more healthy, peaceful, equitable world, the classrooms of the world have to be filled with girls as well as boys’ Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General
It is of paramount importance to make sure that girls have equal access to opportunities as boys, for the sake of humanity, sanity, equality and development. There are a lot of contributions to development in general when a girl is given the same opportunities as boys for instance, in education. When a girl child is educated, it spreads out even to the whole country. Meda Wagtole, a school girl in Ethiopia puts it this way ‘ to be educated means… I will not only be able to
help myself, but also my family, my country, my people. the benefits will be many’. That is true it goes beyond the individual. It is high time investments are made towards the promotion of sending girls to school. Getting basic is a right but most people are not able to enjoy this right because of the different levels of poverty. When a family is impoverished, the thought of sending the girl child to school becomes a secondary issue. Therefore, there is an urgent need to start focussing on finding ways to make sure that the ‘classrooms of the world are filled with girls’
Recently the Norwegian Foreign Ministry released a new action plan concerning the promotion of gender equality. Based on Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality “Freedom, power and opportunities” (Frihet, makt og muligheter) creates guidelines for both the foreign and development ministry on how to promote women’s rights and gender equality.
One of the areas of focus is Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), an absolute necessary condition if we ever are going to experience equality between the sexes. Sexual health and rights concern the right to make your own decision regarding your sex life; like who to have sex with and what type of contraception to use. Reproductive health and rights are the right to decide if and when to have kids.
All these conditions are necessary for women to have the health and opportunity to participate in school, the job market and act as political decision makers.
I recently attended a seminar on gendered foreign policy and a woman in the audience said some wise words (unfortunately I didn’t catch her name). She said that women’s right should not be considered as an add-on that increases the workload for government agencies and organizations. Consciousness about the prevailing gender relations should be the starting point for all decisions and ought to concern all matters.
An action plan that demands foreign policy to consider gender relations begs the question of what’s happening on the borders and domestically. As the Foreign Ministry itself points out female refugees are especially vulnerable and at high risk to experience sexual violence, both while travelling and when arriving to the refugee camps. Since the war in Syria and the consequential arrival of refugees in Norway the subject of migrants has been in the newspaper daily. Few or none of these stories have talked about sexual violence and harassment and the SRHR of women on the run.
Another concern is that we practice what we preach. The report states that Norway’s “legitimacy as a sponsor for women’s right makes us capable of assuming a leadership role for global gender equality” (freely translated). Notwithstanding that Norway has come far in the struggle for gender equality, we still have some steps to go. For instance sex education in Norway is very limited in its scope, focusing mainly on the biology of heterosexual intercourse and failing to grasp the more complicated issue of sexual autonomy and non-heterosexual sex to name a few. Proper education about SRHR is integral for women to make informed decisions about their life – also in Norway.
SRHR is only one area mentioned by the report that has improvement potential home and abroad. Others areas concern amongst other sexual violence against women and an equal part in the job market. In Norway women still doesn’t receive equal pay for equal work and between 8000 – 16000 are raped annually.
It is great that the Norwegian government obliges itself to fight for women and girls abroad. However it is always easier to “fix” someone else’s mess then dealing with your own. Let’s not forget our self and our own borders in the struggle for global gender equality.
Approximately
80% of the cases will never reach the court room due to lack of evidence or inability to find the perpetrator.
1/3 of the trials end with the perpetrator being found not guilty.
Approximately, that means that only 200 women get the justice they deserve.Mari
A special dedication to the strong women I have been blessed to meet. Thank you for the encouragement and the will to go on, thank you for being exemplary and your faith that all things are possible only to they that believe. Thank you for the wise words which I now engrave in my heart. Thank you for being upright and true. Thank you for the struggles that you have won on behalf of millions of women. Thank you for being unlimited and believing that yes we can.
‘Each year, 15 million girls are married before the age of 18 that is 28 girls every minute, 1 every 2 seconds’
This is just but one of the devastating statistics regarding child marriage and child brides. There is a lot of evil which happens under the sun coated as cultural values and religious practices. I believe girls should remain children as long as they are children. Girls should enjoy their girlhood and femininity not fearing what they will become of them outside marriage and celebrate being female without feeling inferior and apologetic. Girls as young as 5 years old are married off to cover for their family poverty and in most cases they are married off to old men and one may wonder what will become of them, their future, and the future of their children. It is very sad that the practice of child marriage is illegal but very much thriving. How? Why? What next?
The Katswe Sistahood campaign on ending child brides ran with the slogan ‘Give us books and not husbands’. This is so with the belief that education can be used as a tool to liberate. Offering a girl child basic education is one way of empowering her. With education, girls tend to have more choices and options. According to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, sending a girl child is fulfilling their basic human right. Therefore, it should never be regarded as luxury or favour. Also, in educating a girl child you are equipping her with skills and confidence to make wise decisions as family members, future parents, workers and citizens.
Being married off as a child is one of the worst forms of powerlessness. Powerlessness entails the lack of strength and power, being totally helpless and ineffectual. Furthermore, it is lacking legal and other authority. That is the state of the majority of child brides their voices are not heard, their rights are violated, they are treated as second class citizens, their space is taken and they lack urgency to fight. All this become a huge barrier to development. We cannot talk about development when one of us is married off before puberty, we cannot talk about development when one of us’ education is interrupted, we cannot talk about development when one of us’ opportunities are limited and we cannot talk about development when one of us is at a high risk of domestic violence. We need to act now. Change attitudes and perceptions, laws alone are not enough to fight this war. There is a need to go beyond that.
The 17th of December 2015, at a bus-stand in the middle of Harare, a woman was followed, shouted at, and stripped by a group of over 40 men. The assault was filmed, the movie spread across social media, and three months later two of the 40 men were sentenced to 8 months in prison.
Rough times on the streets
Times are not good in Zimbabwe. Life is though for most people and jobs are hard to come by, something made very clear by the unemployment rate that is estimated to be as high as 90%. Naturally, this is also visible in the streets. In different ways.
One consequence is that the bus stands are filled up with people trying to make some dollars. Most of these people are men, quite young ones as well, with the task of shouting out destinations and filling up the local buses. They are called Touts or Rank Marshalls, but as the words have gotten a negative connotation – the name Transport Coordinator can be used. The men are many, the money is low, and drugs and alcohol on the job is not unusual.
Another way the hard times are visualised in the streets, is by the people who walk them in the night. People who are also trying to make some dollars. Most of these are women, many are quite young, and they are earning money by selling sex to people who approach them. They are called Whores or Prostitutes, but as the words usually are used to attack and shame, some prefer to be called Sex Workers instead. The women are many, the money is low, and violence and abuse on the job is not unusual.
Katswe Sistahood have for a long time organized meetings with groups of sex workers, hearing their voices and doing what they can to support them. Last October they figured they wanted to hear the voices of the transport coordinators as well. The 40 men who assaulted the woman at the bus stand in Harare were transport coordinators. Their reason for harassing her was that she was a “whore”. These two groups, coming from the same neighbourhoods, sharing the same streets, where does the violence come from?
Katswe’s office, October 12th: Joining forces
Arguments and accusations were flying back and forth, sometimes overpowered by the sounds of collective protesting. Three mixed groups of men and women, transport coordinators and sex workers, were seated in the garden of the Katswe office. Or not everyone were seated – from time to time someone jumped engaged up from their plastic chair with the volume of their voice one notch louder, and with hands pointing and gesticulating around. Everything was said in Shona, so I didn’t understand the words, but I saw the body language and so I understood the general meaning. They were arguing about decent dressing, how long a skirt should be, how a woman would walk into a bus, how she should sit down, how the men treated her.
The three groups were immersed in their own discussion while I was hovering around them with my camera. I was thrilled by the energy of the place, trying to capture what I could of the heated atmosphere. In the start of the session when everybody had been sitting together, the men had been comfortable in their group, relying on each other to back up accusations or arguments, and laugh at each other’s jokes. After a while, after everyone was mixed and split up, the group dynamics changed. The women were speaking up. Loudly. They were questioning, and they were standing their ground.
“I wear a long skirt and you call me a grandmother, I wear a short skirt and you call me a whore – How is it that I should dress then for it to be good enough for you?”
The men were answering back, but not with the same unified voice as they had used in the start. The groups had become individuals. The righteous tone which was used talking to the women in the beginning was replaced by hints of respect. This does not mean they agreed on all the matters, because they certainly did not. But when everybody had come back in plenum again to continue the discussion, if a good speech was given by either woman or man, the returning applause could come from whomever. I even witnessed fist bumping – transport coordinator to sex worker. And then the topics changed.
What it all boils down to
Two days later, Katswe arranged a meeting with the same groups of sex workers and transport coordinators, together with a lawyer, a couple of representatives from the parliament and a group of journalists and activists. The sex workers and transport coordinators had chosen one representative each to speak their cause to the politicians and media, summing up the most important issues that arose from their earlier meeting. This time, there was no mentioning about short skirts.
The representative from the group of sex workers letting parliamentarians Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga and Tabitha Khumalo and lawyer David Hofisi know what they need for a better Zimbabwe.
Poverty, lack of education and lack of jobs, this was what they talked about. Transmission of HIV, the weaknesses of the health systems, and problems with the police. These were the issues it all boiled down to at the meeting between the sex workers and the transport coordinators. After long hours discussing skirt-lengths, that was what everyone arrived at.
The incident that happened the 17th of December 2015, the stripping of the woman at the bus stand, was one of many similar episodes. The streets of Harare are though, and when you are unable to fight the ones above you, you fight the ones below you. After all – they are the worst problem, aren’t they?
Unfortunately, regarding Zimbabweans political and economic situation, it is difficult to see how there could be an immediate change in the issues that were presented to the parliamentarians at Katswe Sistahoods meeting. But 20 transport coordinators, and 20 sex workers got the opportunity to sit together and figure out what their real issues were, and what really are the worst problems in their reality. That’s worth something. Politics and economics are words and numbers reaching far into our everyday lives. We all do well in remembering that.
In Katswe tradition most meetings ends with music and drumming. In the front is Katswe-director Talent Jumo, transport coordinators working the drums in the back.Katswe-employers Fadziso Fadzisai Mawunganidze and Otilia Chinyani together with the new transport coordinator group.
Text: Sigrun Haugdal Hitland
Me wanting to be a part of the gang.
PS. We have a lot of great photos of the women representing the sex workers. However, in respect of their privacy we are not publishing them here.
The singing go on and on, and the air is filled with vibrant energy as the girls clap, chat and dance freely with subconscious innocence.
Katswe Sistahood is deeply rooted in the idea that art is a strong and effective tool of advocacy, dancing is symbolic of ownership of one’s own body, and that art altogether helps girls and young women Find their voices and Reclaim their bodies!
“Anything for Us without Us is against Us”-Working with and for the girls.
We are in Mbire where the United Nations has conducted a research and found out that it’s the region with the highest rate of child marriage. Katswe had extended its wings to the Dande region. Most girls drop out of school because of early and unplanned marriages. Some girls are not even awarded the opportunity to sit behind a desk because of the intensity of economic hardships in our country, and their futures are sacrificed for two cows.
Early marriage seems to be the pre-dominant issue amongst the youth in the area. Katswe has launched a “Stop Child Marriage” Campaign and since the intervention, slight changes have been felt within the communities in which we are working with. Passive comments are frequently passed on how Katswe has managed to work with and for the girls to combat the harmful practice of marrying off girls at a tender age. Not only does the organisation discourage parents from marrying off their children at an early age, but Katswe has gone an extra mile to introduce the Pachoto forum whereby girls and young women meet and share experiences and ideas pertaining their sexual and reproductive health rights. The girls have found the sharing platform useful because it has helped them engage with each other and rediscover their potential in various arenas of life.
Why Girls and Young Women?
Well, the answer is simple! Katswe works with girls and young women because we believe in the voices of the oppressed. The oppressed offer a range of untold stories which are rarely told, yet lived in our everyday lives. The system in which we have grown in takes away agency from girls at a young age through domestication and societal predictions that one is expected to live up to. Girls are taught from a young age that they should wake up before sunrise, scrub floors and make breakfast for their brothers in preparation for their marital lives. Domestication is not the problem in this case because it makes one gain skills that allow the smooth flow of life every day thus leading to self-sufficiency. The problem is the intention. The patriarchal system has brainwashed most girls into viewing marriage as the ultimate goal in life, which is unfair to the self.
Girls have dreams too, and those dreams should be nurtured before they get lost into the echoes of the age system. Some want to sit in the highest ranks in politics. Some have dreams of becoming pilots. Some are dying to become housewives, which is not bad only if the urge has not been externally enforced by circumstances like poverty, the lack of access to education and other factors.
We won’t stop till…
Girls and women have realised their potential. It is said that graveyards and cemeteries are the richest places on earth because there lies undiscovered talent, but history does not necessarily have to repeat itself, it can be rewritten, and that what keeps Katswe and the girls going!
As our stay in Norway is running towards its end, it is also about time we gave you a little update on how it has been. It seems like during 2 months we have only been able to give you one blogpost. But we thought we could try to make up for it now with a nice summary of what we have been doing all this time!
I went to a stand-up-show some nights ago. The Sistas have left Zimbabwe, so I am now back to Norway – my home country – staying the next months in the capital city Oslo. It seemed like a good idea then to give my boyfriend tickets to see Jim Jefferies (a comedian I know he likes) for his birthday. Jim, my boyfriend and I were going to be in the same city at the same time, so why not enjoy some stand-up.
The event was held at Oslo Spektrum in an area that had the capacity of 3000 people. After we had found our places in the middle of the hall, I spent the waiting-time looking around at some of the 2998 other people surrounding us. It was mostly men around, but that did not really surprise me considering that I knew Jeffries played on some quite cynical, and a bit macho humour. Still, as I can be a bit of a cynical myself sometimes, I hoped the night could be fun.
I cried. Jim Jeffries opening line was: “Bill Cosby”. From there it was all about rape the next 20 minutes. “Why did it take so long before the women came forward? Maybe he didn’t rape them properly. Just fingering!” It was so absurd sitting there. The only thing that was clear was that I didn’t find anything funny. It felt like my brain had momentarily crashed and was trying to figuring out how to react to what was going on. “So after being drugged you wake up, and there is Bill Cosby with his fingers up your cunt”. The sentence was followed by a physical demonstration with Jeffries pretending to push his fingers into an invisible vagina. As he gestures with his hand back and forth, a roar of laughter goes through the crowd. This is when I started crying. The laughter seemed to echo in my mind as my sight went blurry. I couldn’t hear what Jim was saying, all I heard was the loud, male laughter that reverberated through the arena again and again.
So what is wrong with this episode? Is it the emotional girlfriend freaking out her boyfriend, weeping so that he cannot laugh at the jokes without feeling like an asshole? Is it Jim the comedian, writing and performing a set of arrogant, sexist jokes with the main purpose of making money out of being a douchebag? Is it the audience, whom without or any conscious doubts or cultural critique is laughing their asses off when hearing rape-jokes? Or maybe is it just the whole crazy society at whole?
The last 5 months have for me been somewhat of a long chain of epiphanies, understanding more and more about gender differences in the societies, and the hardships most women around the globe have to go through. I have heard many stories of abuse and rape, and I have learned to see this as a part of the everyday struggle women face. I used to think that rape was rare, and it happened to one of the few. Now I understand that rape is common.
A big study done in Norway by NKVTS in 2014 showed that one woman out of ten had experienced rape. One out of ten. And this is numbers from Norway, one of the countries in the world with the best rates on equal gender rights. Rape happens. And it happens often. It happens in Norway, and in every other country in the world.
So how can it be that rape is so distant for most of the 3000 laughing people in that audience? The prevalence of men being sexually assaulted is far less than the prevalence of sexual assaults towards women, so naturally a male crowd would generally be less personally affected than women. But who are the perpetrators in those sexual assaults? Mostly they are men. I am guessing that the chance of it sitting one or two men in that crowd of 3000, who had sexually assaulted a woman was pretty damned big. If so, were they laughing?
Maybe are we not all agreed on what sexual assaults is. Could this be a reason to why people distance themselves from the so widespread phenomena? Is it still sexual assault, and is it still rape if the woman flirts with the man at first, but later says no to sex. In the Norwegian law it has to be proven that the perpetrator have used violence or threatening behaviour for it to be rape. What about the rapes that leave no physical marks on the body, and what about the rapes where violence was not used, but the person clearly said no?
The black-white picture that is often painted of rape makes it seem like the violence has to be grave for it to classify as rape. The line between consensual sex and non-consensual sex (rape) can be thin, and if you are not aware of it, the line is easy to cross. The victims of rape does not necessarily need to be bloody and traumatised with PTSD – but they can be. The perpetrators of rape is not necessarily psychopathic, sadistic, womanhaters – but they can be. Rape is normal, and it happens at parties where people are drunk, it happens between couples, it happens in homes. Statistics from the Norwegian police in 2014 shows that 47,5% of the reported rapes in Norway happen at parties, and 16,5% between people with relations to each other.
Jim Jefferies warned us on stage, telling us that humour is not something you should connect too much to the real life. When one of the problems in our society is the lack of attention and understanding of sexual violence, why then do you want to disconnect it? Will that help us make people look at sexual assaults more seriously? The reason you laugh is because it is true, and the reason you laugh is because it did not happen to you. It did not happen to me either, but I have learned enough for there to be needed more than a joke to momentarily blow away all consideration, insight and empathy. I might be a killjoy, but so be it. Humour can hurt.
I grew up being the only daughter, I have two brothers before me, this meant all the house chores were specifically mine and with no help whatsoever I was expected to clean, cook and wash dishes. I still have vivid memories of my childhood when my brother would come back from playing with his friends while I was reading, and tell how hungry he was. All of a sudden everyone in the house would look at me to make him food. I remember when I asked why? I would constantly be told “because you are a girl” and that I needed to take care of him. For the longest time this didn’t make sense to me. Everywhere i go, I am constantly reminded of my gender from how I am dressed, how I walk, how I speak and how people react to me. As a result to come to Zimbabwe to work for a feminist organisation, you can imagine my surprise when the person waiting to receive me was a man.
From a young age I had dreamt about coming to this country, at that time it was where my favourite high school teacher was from. An open minded someone who always had something amazing to share about life, politics and other things. He was my favourite because he used to borrow me books to read and had introduced me to my love of writing. He also awarded me opportunities of being on the school debate team and past on his gift of gab. I admired him, I used to ask him questions about growing up, his studies, his country of birth and his family. I remember this one day when I told him I wanted to study communication science in Zimbabwe, he told me to go for it, experience life and write books so he and the rest of the world could read.
Unfortunately life didn’t go how I had dreamt about it. I finished high school, fallen in love with information science and found myself in rolling at the University of South Africa. A year later found my true passion, feminism, and it got me to where I always wanted to be. In the very same country I had dreamt about being in and doing what I love the most, I find myself writing about my experiences just like I had promised him I would do so he and the rest of the world could read. I have thought about coming to this country before not just once but a lot of times. I’ve also heard different stories about this same country which have had me feeling, the feelings of anxiety and excitement about finally being there.
I was told when I get to Zimbabwe I would have someone waiting to receive me at the airport. We all left South Africa the same day but we had different flight times and fortunately the two Zimbabwean girls had the earliest flight. Which made me think they were the people who had to receive, coming to my surprise it was a man with a placard written our organisations name, One in Nine. When he saw it was us, he smiled, helping us making our way to his. He greeted us, helped carry our bags to the car and I remember asking him “where are the girls?” before I got his name. This didn’t seem to bother him as it had to me, he answered me with a smile telling me I will find them waiting for me at the office. I wanted to ask more but I couldn’t. he had a very pleasant face on our entire trip to the office, he listened to us complain about how it was so hot and doing a lot of country comparison, I had imagined he enjoyed it looking at his face. He would assist by telling us about the different areas we were passing through and how they were named.
And then I found myself asking a question I had thought about when I noticed it was a man waiting to receive us. I don’t know how in all the conversations we had with the girls they didn’t mention this to me or all of us in general. “Are you permanently working for the organisation?” the question was random and so are the coming questions. He answered me not bothered at all and told me that permanently it was just him but they have other men helping with the media of the organisation. I then asked how it felt to work in an organisation that had a lot of women and led by women. He told me he was okay about it and he enjoys working with them because he gets to learn a lot of things. To be quiet honest I didn’t know how to feel about his answers, maybe because where I am from men knew about their power and loved it. They would not be okay with being led by women or even working for a organisation that is for women. I stayed on with the feeling to identify its roots and what I should call it. While I was at this, the next morning he came to fetch us to take us to the Embassy to have a meeting with the Ambassador . I was really excited about this visit the primary reason was the little information I got on WhatsApp that morning, that the Ambassador was a male feminist. Something I had spent most of my time thinking about or even asking myself “can men be feminist” and like most things I told myself it is something I needed to explore and I was ready, I thought I was ready.
When we got there a beautiful woman who was waiting to receive us, she helped us on our way to the office of the ambassador and while asked if we would love something to drink. We walked into the huge office that was full of South African male leaders, the man stood up and we had our introductions. We told him who we are, why exactly we are in Zimbabwe and what we hope to achieve. We also told him about our primary themes and he set there quietly listening to us, taking turns on this. He seemed very impressed and kept a shy smile on his face. He asked questions as soon as he got a chance and gave us, as many would call it, a fatherly advice about living in this country. The dos and don’ts, the challenges, he also commended us for coming to the country especially because of the stories told about it. I then asked him how he felt about feminism, he confirmed what I was already told, he was feminist and shared a personal story about his childhood that reminded me of my own. Even though I was familiar with the feelings coming with this story I had imagined my brother telling his part of the narrative and was assured it would have been the same. Does that make my brother feminist? No, but I assume this will make sense later as you continue to read. He continued to tell us about when he started working this side, that it was “emzeni weziintsizwa” , meaning the boys club. He shared that it was very disturbing for him that there were no women there and started making changes. Now they have 40% of women who have leading positions there, it brings him joy to have seen this change happen, it was difficult but necessary. I was given a chance to meet one of the women but it wasn’t enough to have these necessary conversations. It was an honest pleasure to having met both of them, they made us aware of certain challenges that we might have faced if we didn’t pay them a visit. They both seemed to be happy that we came. However, I still disagree that men can be feminist.
I was born in a female body socialized into being a woman and living in this body had its very expectations. I faced oppression, discrimination in a particular way, labelled as loose and weak because we were socialized. It is important to name it and frame it. Growing up and living in a patriarchal society has made that fact clear. The politics of patriarchy have suppressed women’s voices and dominated social discourse and social action to the benefit of men and detriment of women. Although I believe that men can be pro-feminist and anti- sexist, I do not believe men can and are feminists in strictest sense of today’s society. Men, in this patriarchal system, cannot remove themselves from their power and privilege in relation to women. To be feminist one must be a member of the targeted group (i.e women) not only as a matter of classification but as having one’s directly lived experience inform one’s theory and praxis.
Men cannot be feminists any more than whites can be Black Nationalist. However men can be pro-feminist and whites can be pro-black nationalists. At the same time it is not enough to simply be a member of the disenfranchised minority to be either a feminist or a black nationalist. Feminism, like Black Nationalism requires political consciousness and even activism.
The men I have met of this country my high school teacher, the driver in my host organisation and the ambassador are my example of how men can be pro-feminist. Like them, men need to engage with feminist theory and practice, letting it work on them, in order to liberate all genders and build a society constructed on justice and nourished by love.
nd for the girls to combat the harmful practice of marrying off girls at a tender age. Not only does the organisation discourage parents from marrying off their children at an early age, but Katswe has gone an extra mile to introduce the Pachoto forum whereby girls and young women meet and share experiences and ideas pertaining their sexual and reproductive health rights. The girls have found the sharing platform useful because it has helped them engage with each other and rediscover their potential in various arenas of life.
are taught from a young age that they should wake up before sunrise, scrub floors and make breakfast for their brothers in preparation for their marital lives. Domestication is not the problem in this case because it makes one gain skills that allow the smooth flow of life every day thus leading to self-sufficiency. The problem is the intention. The patriarchal system has brainwashed most girls into viewing marriage as the ultimate goal in life, which is unfair to the self.
which is not bad only if the urge has not been externally enforced by circumstances like poverty, the lack of access to education and other factors.
Singing in the snow:
Sistas, Sex and Politics 