2,200 women from across the world gathered together in Cape Town last month for the AWID conference [Association for Women’s Rights in Development]

South African feminists attending AWID strategised for several hours, facilitated by Pregs Govender, and resolved to build a stronger women’s rights movement in South Africa by reaching out to other feminists and womens rights activists and holding a SA feminist forum or a women’s convention to further strategise. All Photos by Zanele Muholi

More AWID photos here by Zanele

Links: Zanele Muholi @ Michael Stevenson Gallery

Tags:
South Africa + Women
AWID
Zanele Muholi

As the international community commemorate the twentieth anniversary of World AIDS Day, there is a country which today is left dwindling behind watching every day as it comes and only hoping against every hope that food and possibly a cure will be found. What is more traumatising is the fact that even if this cure is available chances of having the medication in their hands is very slim if not zero.

The theme of this year’s World Aids Day is ‘Lead – Empower – Deliver’. This is theme is quite far from being realised by Zimbabwe. The never ending political circus of the country only serves to unleash what history might describe as mass genocide on ordinary Zimbabweans. The country stands with no distinguished leader thereby diminishing any hope of the fulfilling the commitment of the theme, that is, access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010.
It is quite saddening to note that this year the event is being marked by the significant rise in the number of AIDs related deaths. Medical institutions like hospitals and clinics have been closed down thereby erasing any hopes of saving more lives. Worse, the calamity faced by HIV positive patients is the critical shortage of ARVs as a result of the government’s abuse of the donations it has received from the US government.

In 2006 Rudo* a friend who is HIV positive and currently in Zimbabwe was on the brink of death before her life was revived by the successful taking of ARVs. Today her life is once again being placed in jeopardy by the non availability of these precious tablets. Talking to her on the phone she pleadingly asked me if I could by any chance send her some ARVs. Goodness me I only wish I could send them to her, and not only her but a million other people who are in her predicament. A predicament that they are facing, of not being able to celebrate life – but to face imminent death. Her position is worsened by the lack of basic human needs like having clean water in your house. Sewage water from the toilets flowing down her door step. Another positive friend has just died and everyone says it is cholera but Rudo tells me otherwise. Her friend did not have ARVs. The last time she had them was four months ago and ever since then her condition has deteriorated. She dares not to speak about it publicly, she was even cautious as to the choice of words she used in our phone conversation.

What I discerned in her voice was a pleading tone, pleading for someone to intervene lest she losses her life. Knowing that somewhere out there in the world other lives are being given a chance to life, being treated of the same ailment. As we end our conversation I only can pray for her to hold on - hope is her only option.

In this years campaign I implore the whole world to look at the crisis in my country Zimbabwe. I would appeal to the international governments such as the UK to grant asylum to Zimbabweans in their countries. I appeal to the government of United Kingdom to seek ways of alleviating this situation in Zimbabwe by allowing the vast number of asylum seekers to work so they may support their loved ones at home . The leadership of Zimbabwe has failed the people of Zimbabwe but still the international community can help by supporting Zimbabweans abroad rather than dumping them in rooms with no work or deporting them back to South Africa or Zimbabwe.

Links : Word Aids Day 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004

Tags:
Zimbabwe + HIV/AIDS
Asylum Seekers + UK

We very rarely hear about Hausa writers let alone Hausa women writers. Here Hausa novelist Sa’adatu Baba is interviewed on CNN. However Talatu-Carmen tells us the translations leave much to be desired and once again assumptions are made about religion and traditions. It’s so easy for CNN and other media to report Africa in this way as no one ever challenges their mistakes or if they do they just don’t give a damn.!

It’s thrilling to see Hausa writing featured on international news, but I wish the problems with censorship weren’t simplified down to sound bites like “conflict with Muslim tradition.” (It’s also a bit funny to hear things translated–when the translation sounds very different from what the person was saying….)

Via Abubuwan da naki tunani

This kind of lazy reporting is also evident in the reports on the riots in Jos. Instead of acknowledging the complexities of such conflicts, they reduce every African conflict to “ethnic” or “religious” differences. - see here and here. Just possibly like people elsewhere in the world, could it not have something to do with people getting pissed off at being disenfranchised and cheated out of their votes? This is not to justify the violence but to consider the possible causes such as why the need to rig votes? Who wins and who looses out. Resources are scarce and the poor are set against each other by actions such as vote rigging.

Tags:
Hausa Literature
Nigeria
Nigeria + Jos riots

Sexual violence in Zimbabwe dates back to the liberation war in the 1980s when women were used as sex objects serving Zimbabwean soldiers. There has been a silence around the rapes and other acts of sexual abuse which took place at that time. Now following more systematic sexual violence by the state - rape and other forms of torture against women during and following this years elections, Betty Makoni, Founder & Director of the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe, recently launched the Zimbabwe Rape Survivors Association (ZRPS)

The violence that characterized the presidential run off elections left a trail of disaster in Zimbabwe. The state sponsored post election violence from May 15 to 29 July 2008 left hundreds of women and girls traumatized because of rape which was used and continue to be used as a weapon of war. Many women not only lost their homes they had worked so hard for the past two decades to own but also hands, fingers, legs and their genital organs. Right now there seems to be somewhat every sign of political leadership transition in Zimbabwe and the women are angry and disappointed that there is no pointer that there would be transitional justice for the rape survivors and moreover many of them are still terrified ,displaced and are constantly mocked by their perpetrators and many men left their wives as a result of the public shame brought by the rape. It is feared more than 2000 women and girls in Zimbabwe were raped and due to intimidation and fear have not come out. The Zimbabwe Rape Survivors Association is a loose network of women who survived rape perpetrated by the youth militia under the command of Zanu PF and they will not this time let this case slip off like those before this one. Already the women have partnered with AIDS Free World for collection and preservation of evidence and on 11 September 2008 the idea to come up with the Zimbabwe Women Rape Survivors Association was conceived in Gaborone in Botswana with a vision to create a new culture of transforming rape victims into fearless leaders so that many more women who have not opened do so and have their evidence preserved and survival strategies and security put in place now that the political situation has not stabilized and nowhere in the political deal is stated that there will be justice for victims

Tags:
16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women
Rape + Zimbabwe

Tags:
Strategies of Resistance
Forms of Resistance
Social movements