Trust urges capacity building for female legislators

But more needs to be done to ensure that they are better capacitated says Memory Kachambwa, the Director of the Women’s Trust.

“Female legislators have had some notable successes. For example Thokozani Khupe raised a motion on the need for a cancer budget and we saw that this was implemented last year,” she said. “Jessie Majome raised a motion on gender based violence and we are noting that government is moving a gear up on debating and ensuring the implementation of GBV related policies.”

Concerns have been expressed that, despite the increased numbers of female legislators, the quality of their contribution in Parliament is still low. There are 85 women out of 270 legislators in Zimbabwe’s eighth Parliament. Of the 80 Senators, 39 are women.

According to the new constitution, 60 National Assembly seats, 60 senatorial seats and 10 persons on each provincial council elected on the basis of proportional representation are reserved for women.

The contribution of these women has come under spotlight following revelations that their male counterparts refer to them disparagingly as Basic Commodity Supply Side Intervention (BACOSSI), which was a government initiative that included free hand-outs of food and farming implements.

Kachambwa emphasised the importance of training and education. “Some of these women are not very educated and they need that support. But I would like to believe that the contribution of female legislators is even better than their male counterparts because there are more men that are back-benchers than woman,” said Kachambwa.

Analysing the performance of female legislators who Parliament for their second term, she noted that they were much more confident of themselves and more knowledgeable of what was expected of them in their roles as representatives of constituencies.

Oppah Muchinguri, the Women’s Affairs Minister, said there was room for increased participation of women in politics, but she lamented that the country was not yet where it should be as stipulated by the SADC Gender Protocol in terms of gender equality.

“We are fortunate that our government is committed to the implementation of SADC guidelines on gender equality,” said Muchinguri. “We still have room for more. Women can do more to be on the political and leadership fronts but so far, they are doing just fine, especially as legislators.”

The majority of women entering Parliament for the first time did not have the courage to articulate their issues, said Sibusisiwe Budha Masara, the MDC-T Women’s Assembly Secretary General and Matabeleland North Senator.

She said the name-calling by their male counterparts, especially for those elected under the proportional representation system, had affected their performance.

Virginia Muwanigwa of the Women’s Coalition in Zimbabwe said there was need for society to appreciate and support female legislators’ contributions.

“Women are judged too severely – although their male colleagues are not viewed with the same lenses. We need to be fair on how we view female parliamentarians. They are equally capable,” she said.