Malawi: After Attacks, President Says Women Have Right to Choose Clothing
A spate of recent attacks on women wearing pants and miniskirts prompted President Bingu wa Mutharika to declare Thursday that women had the right to choose their dress. He also denied that he had ordered street children and vendors to attack women, who have been stripped of their pants and short skirts. “Every woman and girl has the right to dress the way they wish,” he said on national television. Women were banned from wearing pants during decades of dictatorship, but indecency laws prohibiting them were repealed in 1994.
Source: New York Times

The threat of the downing of tools by Zimbabwe’s civil servants has reached fever peak with the workers representatives embarking on a campaigning streak to mobilize support for the strike. The workers are demanding minimum of US$538 per month for the least paid employee, which they reflects the poverty datum line. The impact of the first one-day nationwide strike yesterday was mainly felt in the education sector and in high-density schools were teachers failed to turn up for work leading to an assumption that the workers are not pulling in the same direction as some government workers reported for duty.

The year 2011 was a year of un-coordinated job action by various government departments demanding better salaries. Depending on how important the department was to the inclusive government at that time some government workers embarked on a strike and forced the government into submission.  An investigation of how the government has awarded increments and allowances to some of its employees leaves one wondering if some government employees are more special than others.

The most recent and more controversial was the paying out of allowances to Members of Parliament in December 2011 just after the Minister of Finance had indicated in his monetary statement that the government had no money for civil servants pay increments. The legislators had threatened not pass the budget in Parliament unless they were paid their sitting allowances, which the government owed them back to 2008. The same legislators went on to demand top of the range luxury vehicles whilst some teachers in the harsh rural areas like Nyamapanda are struggling without the hardship allowances just to motivate them to work. In July 2011 a paltry salary increment by the government was met with mixed reactions from the employees as they complain that it was far below the poverty datum line, which stood at US$502 at that time.

In April 2011 magistrates stopped work at Zimbabwe’s courts nationwide in protest over poor remuneration and they were immediately awarded the increment.  Not to be outdone fellow court workers, the prosecutors, downed tools in protest over salary discrepancies between them and magistrates.

Funds from diamond sales and the special treatment of certain civil servants whilst neglecting others has fueled plans for a nationwide strike by the civil servants. If the legislators can manage to pay each other a whopping US$15 000 some may argue that maybe the Minister of Finance has a secret pool where he can access funds in times of crisis.

From the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association:

Residents dismayed by conduct of Mpilo authorities
Bulawayo residents have bemoaned the negligence of personnel at Mpilo Referral Hospital after reports that women who deliver at the institution are detained until they pay a minimum of $60 without access to bedding and food. To ensure that the women pay their balances, the hospital’s authorities confiscate their identity documents and withhold the new born babies’ birth records. It is alleged that those that fail to pay their medical fees immediately after giving birth are moved to another ward where they sleep on the floor and are not served the hospital food during meal time. This goes on amid the general decline of standards of government hospitals. Despite denial by the hospital authorities that this is taking place, BPRA has it on good authority that the hospital has resorted to these extreme measures as a way of ensuring that all patients pay fully for services rendered to them. Bulawayo residents have said they view this as a gross violation of women’s rights. They said women that deliver at government hospitals should be treated well even if they have not paid their dues. Residents opined that the Ministry of Health should intervene to ensure that hospitals respect the rights of women.

I had a conversation with Melania Chiponda from Chiadzwa Community Development Trust yesterday.

This is what I learnt:

Families at Chiadwza are being forcibly relocated by diamond companies while the government and the judicial system look the other way. Here I thought the point of the Third Chimurenga was to restore land dignity to the peoples of this country. Mining companies have not bothered to hold consultations with the community about relocation; in fact the community found out they were being moved off their land in the newspapers. They have been given a relocation allowance of $1000. They have yet to receive compensation.

The first twelve families to be relocated by mining companies at Chiadzwa were moved into tobacco barns, until there were protests, upon which mining companies began building houses. 89 of the houses built by Anjin for the families they will be relocating were destroyed by the first storm of the rainy season last November. More were damaged.

Companies with majority government shareholding like Marange Resources are easier to negotiate with and more generous towards the community than those which are privately owned like Mbada or Anjin. It’s crazy that Mbada can spend a million dollars on a football tournament to better its public image, yet is miserly with the food packs they give the community and is among the major perpetrators of violence and human rights abuses against the community. The biggest perpetrator of human rights abuses is the police. When CCDT tried to discuss the matter with Police Commissioner Chihuri he was conveniently busy.

Chiadzwa is a dry area, and the little water the community has access to is being polluted by mining companies. Last year four men were detained and beaten by the police for digging for water in their own back yard. One of them died at the hands of a police officer. The other three sustained severe injuries. The police officer responsible for the beatings and murder has never been arrested.

The community doesn’t actually object to the mining or selling of diamonds, they just want it done in a way that their rights as human beings are also respected.

I’m angry. You should be too.

US education reformer Horace Mann: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Jane McAdam Freud smiles. “It doesn’t have to be some big victory,” she says. “Just a little thing.”

Source: http://papodehomem.com.br/estupro/