JOHANNESBURG - Raped at the age of six and orphaned three years later, but still managed to pick herself up and battle on through a rough world where every aspect of survival was scrambled for, to become an international icon. That is the story of Betty Makoni Makoni fought her way from her traumatic start to life to become a multi-award winner and saviour of underprivileged girls, both in her home country, Zimbabwe and internationally. She is the Founder and Director of Girl Child Network (GCN) Zimbabwe and Chief Executive Officer of GCN Worldwide.
300,000 girls
The organisation champions the rights of the girl child globally and since it was established in 1999, Makoni Betty has mobilised over 300 000 girls most of them victims of rape and forced traditional and religious marriages, to be empowered.
The GCN Empowerment Model she came up with has since been replicated in many parts of the world, while Makoni has also mobilised financial resources to build four Girls Empowerment Villages, a unique model that provides safe shelter and healing for sexually abused girls. Already, more than 45 000 sexually abused girls have been empowered and rehabilitated through family, school and in the community.
The UK-based Makoni is also a consistent voice in reminding policy makers and leaders to change attitudes, religion, tradition and laws detrimental to the growth and development of the girl child. I have a mission and vision to carry forward. I feel it within me that I can bring a change in girls lives and I did most of my work without money but with a big heart, she said this week.
A new breed
When I started building Girls Empowerment Villages without a home to call my own, I knew every girl saved in this shelter would be a great investment to the country and many have done very well. I never knew that a rural girl with no pen and paper would sit next to a laptop in a big company and say hello Betty. I am enjoying the results of my work as girls I supported are doing amazing work. We have a new breed of women. I just wanted to make a statement before I died that what happened to my grandmother, mother and me should stop.
GCN Worldwide, based in Essex, UK is also thriving, thanks to generous CNN viewers who made donations. I have seen the whole world doing all they can to support my vision to put a Girls Empowerment and Education Fund for girls. I have faith in young girls. I know what they go through daily and I want them to have income – ranging from a dollar to $500 to help themselves. I know there is potential and it is this potential that I will follow.
There are many girls who are being linked to Universities in USA from rural Africa to study and I thank New Seasons Youth program (US Christian organisation that helps African and Caribbean youth build and sustain a better life through education) for our partnership, which has seen many girls getting scholarships.
In the most extreme of African communities, a woman still occupies a role just above that of a pet, but Makoni rose to challenge that alongside her 10 High School students in Chitungwiza.
GCN was born out of the helplessness and hopelessness of the girl child, with the view to assisting girls in their quest for emancipation and was formerly established in March 1999 as a response to the harsh realities of the life of girls I had observed in all spheres of life, she said. It had a specific mandate to be a voice for the voiceless and to provide a safe haven and forum where girls could meet to discuss their challenges, offer each other support and devise solutions to their problems.
Speak out
Besides advocating on girls and womens behalf, the organisation also empowered them to speak out when their rights were being threatened.
GCN now enjoys worldwide acclaim, with awards and prizes to both the organisation and its founder on the promotion of childrens rights as well as innovative and best preventative strategies in child abuse.
Notable amongst these are the Global Friends Award and Childrens Jury Prize awarded by the Worlds Children Prize for the Rights of the Child 2007, fellowship selection for the Internationally acclaimed Ashoka Fellowship, the 2006 UN Red Ribbon Award for addressing gender inequalities that fuel the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Inspired the Women World Summit Innovative and Preventative Strategies Against Child Abuse Prize, awarded annually on World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse.
Among more than 10 international awards she has received individually, Makoni was in 2003 awarded the Prize for Womens Creativity in Rural Life by the Womens World Summit Foundation in Switzerland, Nominated and Registered as a Human Rights Defender by the Frontline Human Rights Defenders in 2003, given a Certificate of Recognition of Remarkable Individuals from Around the World by Global Philanthropy Forum on Borderless Giving. In the 2009, she was voted CNN hero of the year for Protecting the Powerless. International magazine Newsweek has also named Makoni among the 150 women who shake the world.
Persecuted
But she walked a rough road – and instead of enabling her to heal a fractured nation, President Robert Mugabes administration persecuted her at every turn. I was arrested in Zimbabwe four times because someone had labelled me a member of the opposition (MDC), she said.
In 2006 I was embarrassed when some law-enforcement agents stormed my bedroom and started searching, picking even on my own underwear. All my computers and everything in my office were taken by the police and I only got them back after a week. Prior to this, I used to get help from the police to rescue girls that had been raped, but (ZRP) Commissioner Augustine Chihuri sent a directive ordering all police stations to stop rescue missions, or face immediate dismissal.
She also ruffled some religious feathers during the course of her work. It was so hard for me to watch members of the Johane Marange church marry 11-year-old girls because police told me they were directed not to intervene. But even without me, why would they not save the young girls?
I concluded that girls were in bedrooms and not in classrooms and got very worried that Chihuri would let older men from the church to marry girls. I considered this a fully fledged war on girls bodies.
Obadiah Msindo (a religious leader aligned to Mugabe) raped a girl and his case had overwhelming evidence and police detectives did a splendid job and even kept torn underwear as proof and brought this to court, but he was still set free and her victim and I are both in exile. Obadiah Msindo almost killed me as I recall one day he brought a truckload full of thugs and we were terrorised just near the courts.
In August 2008, I rallied the international community to help women who had been raped by the (Zanu PF-aligned) youth militia in Zimbabwe and Stephen Lewis, a former UNAIDS Envoy and CEO of Aids Free world, came to our help and women deposited their evidence as I supported them personally with a shelter in Botswana.
Unsafe for girls
It was very painful to listen to stories of mothers being forced to have sex with their sons or older women whose grandsons were opposition having sticks inserted into their private parts. During the womens testimonies, I felt Zimbabwe was very unsafe for women and girls and I felt so sorry for the perpetrators and why they would go at this extent
Yes I want to be a girls hero but not a dead one at all, that is why I eventually decided to leave Zimbabwe.
Makoni has also braved bad publicity, which she blames largely on some petty jealousies and the state-run media in Zimbabwe. Many times the government Herald wrote horrible things about me. They lied about my staff and many other things in the organisation.
Having taken so many punches in her work, what keeps her going? I am a woman who believes in working hard, she said and apportioned the success. I also have a loving husband and my three sons (including one under foster care) and we are am so happy together. That would give any woman inspiration because in a family where I am loved and cared for, I never feel at any time I should give up.
Her advice to the victimised is, Never stay a victim and do not fear to break silence on abuse. Makonis work is inspirational, to say the least, but will she leave no records when she eventually departs from this earth?No. A book about my life is coming out soon and it will tell women and girls, boys and men that in life the poor and abused must fight to be better and they must not die victims. My editor Jo Anne Pritchard has done a fantastic job on putting together my life story with hope that every woman and girl heals and that they pick up their pieces and move forward.
Post published in: News