adminFreedom Mutanda
Shamiso (not her real name) cries silently as she follows her mother to the fields where the foreman bellows instructions to the workers who weed out the grass that threatens to smother the growth of beans. She is barely 15. Her mother, Anna (not her real name), left Bangira Village after her husband left the country for South Africa and never returned. Patiently, she waited for the return of her beloved but hers was an unfruitful wait. Her fellow villagers taunted her saying anga ava kugarira guyo sembwa. Loosely translated she was waiting in vain which is a clear opposite of Bob Marley’s ‘. . . wanna wait in vain for your love.’
Shamiso must have been in Form 1. She failed her Grade 7 examinations due to her frequent absences from school.
Her mother had to use extra hands to finish the stipulated area to be weeded, what they call ‘mugwazo’ in the language of farm work.
Regrettably, Shamiso’s mother never paid school fees for her only daughter at the local day school that charges $50 per term; she paid only $10 for the three terms that her daughter was at school. She complains about the employers who do not pay salaries for months on end.
The mother has fine multi-coloured clothes and her hair is made up. That is not a picture of a poor person yet to many people she says she can’t pay the exorbitant fees as the farm owners are reluctant to pay her a decent salary.
Every Sunday she is moved at church by the singing of a song that exhorts congregants to give the church and God some money; she gives the church some money without fail every Sunday.
Anatoria looks at herself in the mirror and smiles proudly. Once upon a time, she was beautiful and was the compound belle. Already she is a mother to four children. She is barely out of her teens. She is 19. Her schooling was cut short at the age of 13 after her Grade 7 teacher raped her soon after she had written the last Grade 7 paper. Her teacher, a Mr Mapora, maintained his innocence saying the sexual encounter was consensual. He offered to marry Anatoria claiming that he was very much in love with her.
Her parents agreed to have an out-of-court settlement with Mr Mapora. He paid the bride price and for some years he was the good son-in-law that any family is proud to have. Every month he bought groceries for his in-laws much to the delight of Anatoria’s family. At the same time, she bore children like a machine.
By the age of 18, she had four children; then, the abuse began. Mapora would come back from work and head straight to the local watering hole for binge beer drinking. When he got home, he deliberately soiled the blankets and force Anatoria to sleep on the bed where raw urine has been poured. Finally, her family took her after he had beaten her senseless. All along, her kinsmen told her that she must endure the abuse as that was part of marriage and that she must stay in the home for the benefit of her children and all that bull.
She called time on her fake marriage and moved out. At the age of 19, she had to run around for the family since Mapora had taken a new wife. Through a community initiative, Anatoria used the law to get maintenance. Will that maintenance give her justice?
The above scenarios are common in our nation; many people ignore them thinking that those experiences will never visit them. Our forefathers were clever when they coined the saying, “mugoni wepwere nde asinayo”. With that in mind, a girl has to be shielded from societal ills. How many times have we seen pot-bellied men carousing with girls young enough to be their daughters or, worse still, their grand-daughters?
SADC has made it a regional policy for a 50-50 representation in many sectors including the legislature, the executive, judiciary and the private domain. Obviously, educated women find it easier to enter former men-dominated areas unlike the females who, through no fault of theirs, can’t get an education. Zimbabwe, as a regional powerhouse, has to put into place mechanisms to remove barriers to women educational development.
The Manica Post highlighted the Makanaka tragedy; she was an intelligent girl who had a big break as a teen television and radio personality. We watched her grow and wished she was our daughter and, all of a sudden, she was lost from our radar and we all thought she was pursuing a career or even being taught the finer aspects of broadcasting.
Like a sledge hammer that has hit on the forehead, we heard of her travails. We felt someone had abused his wealth and taken advantage of a simple girl whose only crime was to be in the limelight. Fortunately, she rose from the dungeons of the mythical hell and lived to tell the tale. How many Makanakas that never have time or luck to be resurrected from the dead? We may never because some warped minds believe a girl is not as important as the boy.
Mao Ze Dong, the mercurial Chinese revolutionary leader, famously stated that women hold half the sky. In many countries today, the population of women hovers above 50% and that is proof enough of the importance of the girl child. Against such a background, it is incumbent upon the community and the state to allow women to tell their story through affording them education. If somehow there are impediments to their education endeavours then they must be given a second chance to educate themselves.
The government took a deliberate effort to educationally empower the girl child at college and university by allowing women to enter those formerly male-dominated careers by using affirmative action. Critics may fume about it, but the bottom line is for a long time, girls did household chores while boys were busy studying.
It is important for the government to help out the girl child to pursue school without due regard to ability. While civil society may chip in with programmes to assist the vulnerable girls, the government must continue to offer the girl child opportunities for her to work for herself or to be an employer after graduating from vocational colleges.
Of course, the new constitution values women, but it is the actual implementation of activities that promote girl power that is of crucial importance.
Zim-Asset’s social cluster deals with equality and empowerment of women. Thus, we can only say, ‘‘educate a woman and you have educated a nation.’’
Parents have to realise that education emancipates women from the bondage that some unenlightened men impose upon womankind. We are not advocating for the wholesale propensity to disobey husbands or disrespect the husband’s family by educated wives. A big NO to that is in order.
As a nation, we have come a long way from the 1980s when we had ‘‘The legal Age of Majority Act’’ (LAMA — for short) promulgated in 1982, to the new constitution that some men regard as bad simply because women have a say in what happens to them every day.
To those who have vision, the first step a parent has to make is to ensure that her daughter goes to school not to go for an early marriage which may be an early grave for all we know.
Online Reporter