Women have been urged to make noise and ensure that the draft gender commission bill does not pass without adjustments.
Speakers at a public meeting organized by the Women Coalition of Zimbabwe in Harare on Thursday said though there were some positives in the bill, a lot of issues needed to be removed before it is passed into law.
Professor Lovemore Madhuku, from the University of Zimbabwe said despite some positives in the bill, it was full of irregularities accusing the drafters of not complying with the constitution.
The gender commission in the constitution and the gender commission in the bill are two different things,” he said
Madhuku added that the bill creates a small department in the Ministry of Gender and Women Affairs yet it is supposed to be independent.
“You need to make noise so that some of these irregularities are removed if you don’t, the bill will pass just like that and this is how the Zimbabwean government operates”, said Madhuku.
He went on to castigate women lawyers saying most of them were doing nothing in lobbying for the bill.
“I would be happy if some women lawyers invest their time trying to push, study around this, as some of them were spending their time trying to push for an enabling act,” added Madhuku.
Pamela Mhlanga, the Director of the Zimbabwe Women Resources Centre Network (ZWRCN) highlighted that the role of the bill was to support democracy as highlighted in chapter 12 of the new constitution.
“The role of independent commission is to support democracy, however I have also put in brackets that it is also about promoting good governance while their objective is to protect human rights and sovereign of the people, promote constitutionalism, promote transparency and accountability in public institution among other roles,” added Mhlanga.
Mhlanga further mentioned the appointment of staff to serve in the commission saying they should not be members of any political party but fully knowledgeable of gender issues.
Members of the public who attended the public meeting raised a lot of critical questions on the irregularities such as too much involvement of the president in appointing of the chairperson and vice-chairperson.
However some women said there were some positives such as the power given to the commission to investigative cases of human rights abuses as well as the creation of an annual gender forum where women can meet and discuss critical issues affecting women in society.
The gender commission bill was recently gazetted to pave way for it to be discussed in the national assembly and senate before it is passed into law.
According to the Government Gazette, the bill seeks to establish a gender commission as provided for in Section 245 of the country’s Constitution, which would create, an independent institution called the Zimbabwe gender commission.
