By Tendai Chisiri
From left Melody Chikono, Samantha Sibanda, Tungamirai Dube and facilitator Zandile Ndhlovu
On their second episode of She Vote 2023 workshop, Gender Media Connect(GMC) articulated the need to include women with disability as well as rural women candidates in the media as Zimbabwe heads to Harmonized elections on 23rd of August.
GMC workshop titled “Ehancing Women’s Participation in Elections Through Media”, was held in the capital city Thursday. It was against the background that they should be women with disability and rural women candidates contesting in the media coverage.
The main topic was “Campaign Support in Media Coverage for Women with disability and Rural Women Candidates”.
GMC is implementing a six months project focusing on women in elections.
This project is aimed at supporting the equal and fair participation of young women in electoral processes through enhancing women’s voices in the media and strengthening their access to information on elections in general but with a specific focus on the 2023 Zimbabwe General elections set for the 23rd of August 2023.
The motivation behind the project was the appreciation of the strong and symbiotic relationship that exists between electoral politics and inclusive and positive social change.
Aligned to its overarching vision and mission, the project was conceived and premised on the fact that the equal and fair participation of women in electoral and political processes is important to enhance democratic practices which foster equal representation of women in governance processes and equity in general.
The workshop attended by journalists is part of the series of workshops held for the six months.
The project demistyfied the patriarchal way people work which is hampering women’s progress.
Samantha Sibanda, a gender and disability activist and Signs of Hope Trust, Tungamirai Dube sitting and vying councillor of ward 41 Seke Constituency and Melody Chikono a seasoned journalist with Alpha Media and Women in News chairperson were the panelists.
Samantha Sibanda bemoaned the way people with disabilities were treated as that stiffles them to be covered by the media in elections.
Education itself is discriminatory of women with disability, she said.
“Whilst candidates should have at least five ordinary levels, most People with Disabilities (PWDs) are not educated to that level”, she added.
She said equal participation of women in elections is democracy.” Political violence discriminates PWDs and fear to participate. The chaos found at the rallies is chaotic such that PWDs fear to attend as mostly there may be incidents where people push each other”, she hinted.
She also said 73% of PWDs live in rural areas thus making them difficult to engage.”
Also digital divide makes people in the rural areas be left behind. More than 52% of PWDs are women whilst most of the registered voters are women.
” However exorbitant fees charged for candidate is indirect discrimination. Women with disabilities are not educated and are informal sector so their voices are not heard”, she added.
Cllr Tungamirai Dube said barriers faced by women in rural areas is social, cultural and religion and these must be addressed by the media so that there should be equal participation of women in politics.
“In rural areas, there is stereotype that a woman should not stand infront of men. This also happens in the Apostolic sector. Religion hampers women being involved in politics” she stated.
“Some husbands don’t tolerate women who come late home. However, that is the order of day in politics as some meetings are done after working hours”.
” Also hate speech used in politics discourage women from participation because politics is taken as a male environment with women there taken as prostitutes”, Dube said.
“If a woman is not educated and strong, with sexual harrasment rampant in politics, she can become a victim of abuse” she elaborated.
She bemoaned lack a of mentorship to rural women candidates. “If you are in the rural, your are in the rural. It is hard for a rural woman that get information” she added.
She also said media coverage in the rural area is difficult and woman should learn to support each other .
She narrated a sad story whereby they tried the help a girl with disability in her Constituency by finding a tutor.
The girl was proposed by the tutor thereby make her vulnerable to abuse.The girl without legs in a wheel chair later lost the privilege they tried to give her showing how women with disability were at risk.
Melody Chikono said there is disparity in terms of news coverage with men being covered more than women.
“Women with disability don’t make news as is the situation. It is up to journalists to address that and make them visible in the media”, she said.
“We have a challenge of covering women in news. Women hardly make news as themselves don’t have confidence that be newsworthy” she added.
Patriarchy is not in the houses that we emanate or political parties that we emanate from but also workplaces that we emanate from”, she revealed.
“As online publications, it is imperative as they don’t have regulations to uplift the voices of women. The scourge of no coverage of women in politics with disabilities and women candidates in rural areas should be dealt with”, she emphasized.
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