Breaking cultural barriers-Emthojeni Women’s Forum

Bulawayo- Emthojeni Women Forum, female lobby group based in Bulawayo has been fighting and challenging the behaviours, beliefs and customs that promote domestic violence and abuse of women’s rights in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, like any other African countries has a patriarchal system which views women as inferior to men. This has subjected women to various forms of abuse domestically and professionally. EWT was formed in 2010 and has been conducting awareness campaigns, engaging community leaders on issues of domestic violence and the Domestic Violence Act. “For women, the organisation engages them through dialogue, where they get to discuss all forms of abuse, the DVA, Inheritance Laws, and marriage laws and their importance to them as women.  “In addition the organisation provides counselling services to both survivors and perpetrators of domestic violence,” said EWF Director, Sikhathele Matambo. Matambo told The Zimbabwean that communities are now aware of how negative cultural practices adversely impact their societies and are now speaking out against violence. She said more women were reporting cases of domestic violence which showed that women were now more aware of their rights, hence more victims/survivors reporting or seeking counselling. “The challenge however has been what to do on realization that a community member has been subjected to one of these harmful practices and at times the fear to interfere or take action on behalf of the victim.  “This is further aggravated by what they say to be ‘lack of support’ from law enforcement agents. No resistance is faced but a cry to assist especially where early marriages are concerned, which unfortunately are still taking place,” she said. Recently Deputy Minister of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Jessie Majome said perpetrators of violence against women were not punished enough to desist from the practice. She urged government and civil society organisations to increase women’s access to resources and to identify economic empowerment initiatives. “These initiatives could range from the need to train women in business management, the sourcing of markets, engaging public-private partnership on women development and empowerment. “There is a need to consider the issue of collateral for women when approaching banks for loans. We may even have Women/ Community banks,” Matambo added.  The organisation established an in-house information centre, having observed that the community does not have information on social service providers and the services they provide. “Through counselling the organisation has assisted in enabling the perpetrator gain awareness of acceptable conduct in the community,” she said. However, Matambo said women in rural areas were left out in most gender empowering programs as the organisation did not have capacity to reach out to all women in the rural Matabeleland “Our work is affected by misconceptions within societies about rights based organisations, there is suspicion by males that anti-domestic initiatives are meant to create defiant wives. “Despite these challenges we are happy that women are gradually becoming assertive and are now able to claim their rights.  Our community dialogues have enabled women to come for assistance seeking redress from their abusive relationships which is noteworthy indeed.