Midlands—The most important thing which we should be teaching youths and young women of nowadays is leadership, to take up space in the most influential posts in society because it’s something which has been lacking for a very long time, not because we don’t want to but because of what society has labeled youths and women to be. We are filled with fear, we don’t really know who we are and what change we are capable of bringing. We have to be taught to know ourselves as we are powerful beings in this world and should be given every opportunity to show our talents and what we are capable of doing. We must voice out and speak up for ourselves.
Before and during the election period, young women and youths were afraid of violence and cyber bullying since from the past years during election period, women tended to be ill-treated socially, harassed, beaten, and imprisoned because of participating in campaigns and elections, thereby hindering participation. Cultural beliefs, such as those in Marange and those from indigenous religions, prohibited women from voting or being involved in the election in any way, since they were taught to respect and be under their husbands to show dignity and “ubuntu”.
Multiple factors hindered young women from voting in this election. One was a shortage of resources, like money, for them to go back to vote in their respective polling stations where they had registered (since many people work outside of their hometowns). Another was the lack of information and knowledge about the extension of the election period to the 24th of August, and lack of information on the women that were running for various offices (though their numbers were extremely low).
For the women that were running, they got a low number of followers because of the patriarchal belief that men cannot be led by a woman. Also, the female candidates were not given much time to campaign for the elections, Elisabeth Valerio had to contest through the courts just to be able to run. Communities also labelled young women and youths who were participating and campaigning in elections as people of loose morals.