Major strides in women’s rights

Tanaka Mahanya

THE Women’s Action Group (WAG) has launched a four-month campaign to celebrate gender equality champions in Zimbabwe.

The campaign, which will feature a range of reflection activities, seeks to highlight the organisation’s progress and draw attention to the work that still needs to be done for women and girls to enjoy their rights.

According to WAG executive director, Edinah Masiyiwa, the campaign will focus on women’s transformative leadership and governance, gender-based violence prevention, sexual and reproductive health rights promotion and emergency response.

Although gender-sensitive policies were introduced into the constitution, more needs to be done to guarantee women’s access to all their constitutional rights, including the right to access reproductive health services.

“The celebration campaign will feature many activities to highlight the organisation’s key accomplishments.

“This is the season where we reflect on the gains and losses that we have made in the women’s movement.

“We strive to address some of the challenges with a particular focus on women’s transformative leadership and governance, prevention of gender-based violence, promotion of sexual and reproductive health rights and emergence responses.

“The first strategy in addressing women’s rights has already been addressed because we now have gender sensitive policies starting from the constitution

“What is left now is to make sure that all that is in the constitution is fulfilled, for example, the right to access reproductive health services.

“We still have challenges and are hoping that through our continued advocacy, that will be addressed.

“The post abortion programme that has been put in place benefits a lot of women who have had miscarriages or abortions to access services,” she said.