Chitungwiza– Anxious, curious, and at the same time jovial, a country awaits the election period to take place on the 23rd of August 2023. Most parties would be competitively campaigning, drawing members from different communities to come in their numbers so that they make proper decisions when casting their votes. The time of elections is a moment when we expect both men and women to take up a stance in making a decisive approach to choosing good leaders or Presidents. Leaders whom they have hope for in bettering their country’s economic and political uprightness for their social expectations. Although Zimbabwe is known for its poor political justice, this year will mark a victory as most of the people’s votes will surely determine which path we are headed to.
In my hometown of Chitungwiza, I witnessed disturbing behaviours that were being thrown towards my fellow women. Headed to the 23rd of August, election day, men working outside their hometowns were taking their leave to come home and vote. This was unfortunately followed by an increase in gender-based violence and the police station near my home becoming a playground for cases of violence against women. I recall two abuse cases: one from a man who was verbally and emotionally abusing his wife because she had uprooted a mhiripiri (hot pepper) from their garden. He accused her of giving the plant to the many boyfriends he suspected she was cheating on him with, and threatened to burn their house down with her and their three children inside. The second case was a husband who was extremely promiscuous to the point of bringing other women to his familial home where his wife and children were. This somehow triggered physical violence against the wife to the point where one incident led to the couple’s two-year-old child being badly injured after the husband attacked his wife while she was carrying the child. After being approached by neighbours, the wife cried out about how the husband would steal the money she made from her small business of selling vegetables and squander it, along with his salary, on alcohol and sex workers. She explained how the only relief she got from his abuse and the risk of getting sexually contracted infections from him was when he was away at work and she hoped election day would come and go quickly so the husband could return to his workplace.
In addition to this, there were large numbers of women working tirelessly in the streets, passing posters and campaign fliers in order to mobilise the vote. The majority of women, especially the youth, were the centre of attraction at any party rally, but not the right kind of attraction…I would see them dancing with their buttocks out then later on see one or more ladies being called to a corner so they can get pimped out to older men in high political rankings. In most of these rallies, cases of sexual assault and harassment were prudent, leading to a widespread stereotypical belief that women who engaged in politics and its events were nothing but prostitutes waiting to be noticed by the male politicians and get money. The heartfelt energy and work most women had contributed in working for the different parties’ campaigns was ignored as it led to broken promises and trickery; at the end of it all they took home one measly piece of chicken, political regalia and a $10 stipend.
The day of the election came and I was disappointed even further at the tragically low turnout of female voters. Even the young women I expected to be there like I was were nowhere to be found. After digging for answers, I found out that the low turnout was because the women had been prohibited by their husbands from going out and voting, some were afraid of the violence that might have occurred at polling stations as Zimbabwe’s history of political violence has indoctrinated a level of fear in many of our citizens, and some could not find themselves fit enough to face such challenges because most of them had children to look after. “Politics, voting is for men. We would rather choose to do our house chores and cook for our husbands as they do the voting for us” many of the women concluded.
I would like to conclude that, many women are misinformed about their involvement in politics. There are a lot of misconceptions about women’s participation in the national election period and most of them are subjected to violence while some just attend campaigns or party rallies for some petty rewards that would sustain them for a very short period of time. Women are not informed about how impactful and vital they are in the public process. To them, politics is for the “strong-hearted men who know more about the social welfare of the country”. Women are still overshadowed by the patriarchal shield that prevents them from thinking outside the box.
More work is surely needed to enlighten women on the importance of participating in the development of a country, as their empowerment has shown that it positively contributes to this development. They should be educated on the positive effects voting has for them, their children and for the generations that will follow.