Book Café Gender Forum

Topic: Unveiling the unspoken realities of women’s reproductive health
Date: Thursday, 21 July 2011
Time: 5.30-7pm
Venue: The Book Café

Speakers: Mrs Masiyiwa (WAG), Mr Chiware(Gynaecaologist), Min of Health (TBA)
Chaired by: Sally Dura

In a report, Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director, UN Population Fund says “The importance of good health and education to a woman’s well-being – and that of her family and society – cannot be overstated. Without reproductive health and freedom, women cannot fully exercise their fundamental human rights, such as those relating to education and employment.”

What are the current trends of reproductive diseases affecting women in Zimbabwe? Are there institutions and mechanisms in place to inform and offer affordable and quality health care for women?  If they are there what strategies for improving knowledge, access and affordable quality health care for women have been put in place?

This meeting seeks to demystify some of the reproductive threats affecting women in Zimbabwe as well as highlight interventions that have been developed to allow women to fully understand their bodies. The Right to Reproductive and Sexual Health is fundamental as Dr Sadik says but how far is the Zimbabwean woman availed this right?

I don’t know that the bath is the best place to think up a blog.

I am distracted by my body. Analogies involving words like “undulating” come to mind. And I would like to take a break and go to the beach next month. The two are linked for obvious reasons. Having slumbered through the winter with excessive amounts of sweetened caffeine and comfort food, disguised under shapeless sweaters and layers of warmth, less exfoliated and creamed and cared for, wrapped up in the dark of night, against any hopeful fumbling which might let in the fresh air, and studiously ignored in the nude – my body is much the worse for wear.

I go through this every year and emerge on the other side of winter hairy, dry, white and blinking against the sun. Like a mole. The thought of hitting the beach, even if it is isolated and I can push the kids in front of me like an excuse, is quite daunting. I shall go wobbling and waddling along the sand, bulging unseemingly in my old bikini, which, like my body, has seen better days, and squashing my frame into fatty folds as I bend to build sand castles. On the bright side, at least I can bend. And I have the comfort of being happily married. Or is that happily complacent?

Never mind. I have found a temporary cure to all ills of this nature – skipping. I am sure it uses up more calories than walking! With the added bonus of making me smile. I have been skipping from the office to the loo, some of which is also due to a sense of urgency – I will leave it to the last minute. It makes me smile to imagine what everyone is thinking in their offices as I skip past. By the time I am in my toilet cubicle I am giggling out loud. If other cubicles are occupied, I giggle even harder. It’s therapy for the soul and something my daughter taught me, having made me skip past all the other mothers at school, with considerably less grace than my daughter. It is humbling and enlightening at the same time.

So I shall skip to the beach, encouraging my boobs and bum to defy gravity, juddering and giggling as I go.

Zimbabwean activist Grace Kwinjeh recently shared the following article with us.

And … as a matter of interest – you might well have missed it – in a recent Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) statement published in The Sunday Mail the ZRP has already concluded that “MDC hooligans” murdered Inspector Mutedza in Glenview. Proclaimed guilty even before trial.

Cry Woman cry, cry beloved Zimbabwe!
By Grace Kwinjeh

“Another weekend in for my child, is that it??? Cynthia was picked up from her town residence, not in Glen View, and she was never in Glen View, why, why is this happening to my child and why to her little boy?? How do I tell a little boy that he can’t see his mother because she was arrested for no crime at all??” Anna Manjoro.

The above are the cries posted on the social networking site, Facebook, by Mrs Anna Manjoro, Cynthia’s mother. Cynthia is one of the 24 Glenview residents accused of killing a police officer, Petros Mutedza . Above is the shrill cry of anguish coming from a mother and grandmother for her daughter, Cynthia, who has left behind a son to whom she has to explain the ‘criminal’ enormity of his mother’s arrest.

Problem is there is no criminal enormity here! Only, perhaps, a coldly calculated ‘political enormity’. An eerie cloud of premeditated spitefulness that hovers ominously over Cynthia and three other women who have been transferred from the female section to the male one at Chikurubi Maximum prison– a holding centre for the most vile and dangerous criminals.

The psychological impact is unimaginable!

Just to prove where the real deception behind the arrests of the 24 lies is the fact that Cynthia herself, even the police admit, has not committed any offense, but her arrest is meant to ‘lure’ her boyfriend who, as they allege, is also behind the killing of the police officer in Glenview.

Anna’s cries are deep from Zimbabwe’s own belly, mourning for her beloved children.

Arbitrary arrests, torture, hate speech – you name it – characterize a relentless campaign by President Robert Mugabe’s acolytes in the top echelons of the army, police and intelligence to intimidate and instill fear in an otherwise restive population. This unfortunate group, it should be noted, is not the first since Zimbabwe’s independence to endure the brutality of similarly seeming mindless incarceration as a result of trumped up charges.

When political temperatures rise, women and children are the most vulnerable. But who cares?

Scars are still fresh from the violence of the 2008 Presidential election run -off. A woman from Manicaland Province states in a December, 2010 study commissioned by the Research Advocacy Unit (RAU) : “No place to hide. Politically motivated rape of Zimbabwean women”, “When I woke up the following morning on the 26th of June 2008, they had put a skirt on me and a ZANU PF t-shirt, I had blood all over my skirt and my thighs were swollen. My vagina was full of semen; I had wounds and cracks from being raped continuously. I could not walk because my legs were swollen.” The grisly forms of violence, endured by hundreds of women, through out the country during this dark period are well documented.

It may seem as if this is no longer the time to dwell on what some might feel to be petty struggles fought in high density suburbs like Glenview. It may, however, certainly be claimed, in some quarters, that the focus is no longer on the ability of the working class (or struggling women, on a more specific note) to mobilize and liberate themselves, and that now the focus has shifted onto the regional and African elites’ political will to offer leadership that will liberate Zimbabweans from a long time ally and friend of theirs.

Sinners is the story of three sex workers, who when business becomes slow, decide to exercise their entrepreneurial skills by harvesting sperm from unsuspecting men. Speaking to Zimbojam, Patrick Chasaya says he wrote the play after meeting a man who was traumatised after being abducted and raped by a gang of four women. The Herald’s review of the play titled ‘Explicit Sinners opens at Theatre in the Park’ implied that the actresses stopped just short of actually having sex on stage. I went with my wangu to get the male perspective on things. Although he had a good laugh during the play he was a little disappointed – it wasn’t as titillating as we had both been led to believe.

The play opens with each of the three protagonists describing how she became a sex worker. Chipo is the housewife whose husband left her without a penny, Samantha was raped at an early age by an unnamed relative, and Keresensia was orphaned and has to care for her younger brothers and sisters. The three women work on the same corner, watching and waiting for their male customers to show up. The actresses do an admirable job of drawing the audience into the play by treating them as customers, or in my case, hated competition. At one point, the police raid them. The youngest, Samantha services an officer in exchange for her freedom, while Chipo, who may be past her prime, is unable to negotiate and is forced to pay a fine.

Tired of scraping a living together especially as business is not going well, the three women hatch a plan to put their skills to better use.

The subject matter would have made excellent material for a tragicomedy, but ‘Sinners’ misses the mark. The skill of the actresses in bringing the characters to life cannot make up for their lack of depth and complexity. The script’s superficial treatment of the protagonists’ tragic back stories and circumstances detract from its comedic elements. It only glosses over the characters’ motivations for doing what they do in an attempt to lighten the subject matter.

The play picks up many interesting themes such as the long-term effects of child abuse, and the exploitation of sex workers by the police, but these are abandoned without warning or resolution. There are a lot of ironies too, like Keresensia being inspired by the Holy Spirit to harvest and sell sperm, or the trio praying before they embark on their enterprise, that are too under-developed to be fully appreciated. The play also ends abruptly, with the trio falling out in loud and emphatic disagreement about how the money they earned should be divided. At the end, we had a feeling that there should have been a message, but were unclear about what that message was.

It was refreshing to watch a play that wasn’t driven by a political or women’s rights agenda. It is not often that a story is told simply to be told in Zimbabwe. The playwright and director should be commended for trying to tackle such a difficult subject matter. It cannot be easy to walk the fine line between objectifying sex workers and turning them into victims. This play at least tries to depict them as real women with real problems.  Charity Dlodlo, Eunice Tava and Gertrude Munhamo portray Samantha, Chipo and Keresensia not as women who are at the mercy of men, but rather as women who show strength, resilience and even ingenuity in facing their difficulties. I believe that is something to be admired.

Economic progress and financial independence are crucial to women being able to protect themselves both in and out of the bedroom. Here’s an interesting article from Af-AIDS.

Safe Sex Elusive for Many Women
Siphosethu Stuurman

CAPE TOWN – Most women still find it difficult to negotiate safe sex with their partners. The problem is even more prevalent among women who are economically dependent on men. Some institutionalised social and cultural norms also fuel the challenge.

Ruth Mokoena, a 30 year-old married woman from Johannesburg, believes that age difference plays a major role in whether a woman is able to negotiate safe sex in the relationship.

“Women do find themselves in a situation whereby negotiating safe sex in the bedroom becomes a burden and they end up giving in. You get some ladies where there is an age difference between the two people and I found that the younger woman (most of the time it’s a younger woman) has a lot of difficult time convincing the guy to use a condom”, she says.

Ruth reckons that she probably would have had a similar problem had her partner been older.

“I found that with me and my husband we’re the same age and we think along the same lines. It tends to be much easier”, says Mokoena.

Moses Mabala, a 31-year old male from Johannesburg, also shared his thoughts on the subject.

“Sometimes men will force their way through to have unprotected sex. A woman will be given no opportunity to stand up for herself, which is a wrong thing to do”, he says.

Zuzimpilo Clinic’s Dr. Limakatso Lebina said ascribed this to a lack of safer sex methods that put power into women’s hands. She says this and other factors, such as the economic and cultural status of women contributes to women’s struggles to negotiate safe sex with their male partners.

“It is definitely difficult for ladies to negotiate safe sex. Unfortunately, the current safer sex methods that are there highly depend on the man to say ‘yes’. And with the relationships always being that the woman will be inferior for whatever reason, whether economical or cultural, then it becomes very difficult, especially in the dim light for a lady to say ‘where is the condom?’ “, says Dr. Lebina.

Dr. Catherine Ongunmefun from the Health Systems Trust also weighed in on the subject.

“There is the issue of cultural practises that are also not helping women. When it comes to lobola payments… As a woman, a man pays lobola for you and that means you have to submit to that man. It’s not going to be easy for you to say: ‘maybe, we need to use a condom’. And also, we know that in South Africa we have a very high rate of gender violence, which means women are being abused by their partners. You can imagine if you have been just beaten as a woman there is no way you are going to say: ‘Can we use a condom’?”, Dr. Ongunmefun says.

Dr. Ongunmefun went on to say that women need to learn to empower themselves.

“Somehow, I think women give in easily. Maybe because they don’t have a choice. But if you are economically empowered as a woman and you have a good job, you can negotiate with your partner. You have to find a way not to depend on a man in a relationship. As a woman you need to empower yourself, respect yourself and say: ‘If you are not going to use a condom, then I won’t have sex with you’,” she says.

According to Mbuyiselo Botha of the Sonke Gender Justice Network, often, men view sex as an act of power. With that comes the need to be in control. As a result, the manner in which sex occurs, including whether precautions are taken or not, largely depends on them.

“A lot of men in our workshops would say ‘condoms don’t make me feel like a real man’. As you go on to ask: What does that mean? It’s that ‘I may not have sexual satisfaction, I need to know that I am in-charge, in control and she must in fact feel me and hear me’,” says Botha

Botha went on to say that men have a notion of invincibility. They tend to believe that HIV and any other sexually transmitted diseases only affect women.

“There is the thinking that HIV it’s not6 a problem for us men. It’s in fact women because there is also a notion that women are loose, they have loose morals, they need to be controlled and they need to be contained”, he says.

Dr. Ongunmefun says there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to change the mind-set of men.

“I think men are generally ignorant, they pretend to know but they don’t really know! They are aware that there is HIV out there, but they never internalise the fact that they have to do something about it themselves. We see millions of people dying out there, but what are you doing as a man?

You are contributing to the problem as men by not going to test, you need to know your status”, she says.

Moses Mabala says there is still hope that men can change. He says there needs to be a new culture of fathering young boys to make them become better men of the future.

” Fathers can contribute to the whole society in raising their boys or their sons in a manner that does not only mean sex is everything… but also learning how to respect a women and learning how to be a man because at the end of the day it is us men that force actions on women”, concludes Mabala.

Online at: http://allafrica.com/stories/201106201605.html

A mob led by kombi touts today booed and harassed a woman who was wearing a mini-skirt in central Harare. Women at the scene condemned the ugly incident.
- A text message from Community Radio Harare