Political players and advocacy groups have amplified calls for the alignment of laws with the constitution to ensure gender parity in electoral processes.
Speaking during an inter-party round table meeting held in Harare, Tuesday, Institute for Young Women Development (IYWD) documentation and advocacy Coordinator Kudakwashe Munemo said there is a need for sustained engagement for political parties.
“The picture is currently gloomy when it comes to statistics of women’s representation. There is a need for sustained engagement for political parties and other institutions to ensure that gender equality is realised. What is crucial is for us is to align current laws to the Constitution for example the enactment of a gender equality bill,” said Munemo
MDC-T secretary-general Paurina Mpariwa implored political parties to come up with policies that protect and promote women.
“There is a need for political parties to come up with laws that actually protect and promote women to all levels of leadership that is from Members of Parliament, Councilors and also support. There has to be a supportive environment and resource mobilisation for women especially when they want to campaign in constituencies or inwards for political representation,” said Mpariwa
Parliament proportional representation for Mashonaland East Brightness Mangora echoed Mpariwa’s sentiments saying there is a need for laws that compels political parties to honour gender parity.
“As political parties, we need laws that protect and promote women to participate in politics. If there can be compulsory laws that compel political parties to have 50-50 representation before registering with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) it would assist,” said Mangora
Zanu PF secretary for legal affairs Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana said the country has lots of work to do to achieve gender equality.
“Our party is a product of society, it is a reflection of the society of Zimbabwe so when we address the issues of gender equity it is not fair to be partisan we were grappled with this matter during the Constitution-making process and that is how we came up with the current constitution set up in the manner it is with all the political parties.
“We then agreed that the issue of gender equality was going to be a progressive matter it was not going to be an event, it was not going to be that easy because we still have to deal with the development of society itself. Let us accept that we have got a lot of work to do as a nation to achieve gender equity. Zanu PF accepts that we must have gender equity,” said Mangwana
