Zimbabwe: Against the grain

The objective of this project is to empower women and children, reduce gender-based violence, increase easy access and up-take of health services, provide awareness of the referral pathway. This is in line with Sustainable Development Goal no.5 which speaks of gender equality for a peaceful and sustainable world. Sister Chitake addressed the community at Nzvimbe Clinic site on the type of services offered. This was during an awareness campaign held in August 2018. There is a high mortality rate in this community owing to non-uptake of health services e.g. ante-natal and post-natal clinic, contraception, voluntary counselling and testing, forced inheritance, forced marriages.

Newsday on 28 October 2015 reported that Chief Chiduku’s comments that “child marriages should not be reported to police as traditional leaders would lose tokens of appreciation” is very retrogressive and detrimental to social cohesion. Nzvimbe is largely occupied by VaPositori. Because of religious beliefs members, mostly women and children are dying from lack of taking up health services. Denying women and children access to health services is a form of gender-based violence. Should woman die because of VaPositori? Should innocent children die because of religion? Should their rights be inflicted? And where should they report? The constitution provides under HUMAN RIGHTS SECTION that women rights are human rights. Council took it upon itself to put up a clinic in the midst of VaPositori for them to access services. In addition, a police post was established. The objective of this project is to: (a) reduce gender-based violence (b) increase easy access and uptake of health services (c) provide awareness of the referral pathway. Through capacity building workshops forced and child marriages would be reduced. Free and professional counselling will be given at the clinic and victims will be able to report to police and be assisted accordingly.

Key Actions 

Council has a standalone gender commit. Several civic engagement exercises were held in the ward after having had a survey and identified the challenges that this special community was facing. These activities encouraged dialogue and interaction. Provisions of the constitution, the supporting legislature, the costs of gender-based violence and benefits of behavioural change in people. This was not as easy as the council faced resistance from the church leaders. Awareness campaigns were held later though the attendance started with very low turnouts because most women were being denied the chance by their husbands. At most, more than ten women can be wives to the same husband. The sect does not allow traditional or modern medicines but believes that they can be cured by holy water. Child marriages and forced inheritance are normal practice among these communities. This instilled fear of prosecution among the men hence they started to attend to our programmes. A proper and sound legal framework should be the basis of all programming because we should always have somewhere to refer to. Through our health and social services department, they were trained on the benefits of accessing medical service. Thirteen women against ten men were contracted as casual workers. Economically these women have been empowered. Council asked the community to mobilize other construction material like river sand would by from them. For any project to be successful in these communities, there should an element of ownership by the communities. ” Against the Grain concept came up as a way of celebrating the total inclusion of women, their capabilities and their contribution to healthy families regardless of religion. Behind every man’s success, there is a woman. Men initiate and women develop. For the country to attain a middle-class economy VISION 2030 it needs DEVELOPERS.

Partners       

Stakeholder helped us to benefit from the comparative advantage of each partner. Some partners provided funding for holding civic engagement like HEAL ZIMBABWE. Various stakeholders which form the district gender commit would take turns to empower the community in their different ways of speciality. Gender links Zimbabwe also played a pivotal role in organizing capacity-building workshops for centres of Excellence and coming up with the idea of Hub and Spoke. This created a platform for interaction among councils. The United Nations also came up with funding for WASH programme which resulted in boreholes being drilled within the ward and encouraged the construction of toilets at every household. WILSA explained the provisions of the constitution and other supporting legislature like the domestic violence act, marriages act including the new marriages bill before the parliament. The community were taught on the benefits of early reporting of any gender-based violence cases and the referral pathway. Victims managed to would medical assistance from Rusape One-stop Centre while survivors got counselling services from other development partners. The community welcomed it because it provided a whole package of services at a stone throw distance.

Strategies    

The major strategy that the council used as capacity building within the communities because we identified that some of the causes of gender-based violence were not because men are abusive in nature but that they lacked knowledge. The information they got from the district gender committee actually led them to accept the construction of a clinic and uptake of health services in their midst against their entrenched religious beliefs. Coalition building was also key as efforts of different development partners and different government departments contributed to this worthy cause. This was a result of interaction with other stakeholders through the district gender committee. Community involvement also helped because the community felt they owned the project and would do anything to support its success.

Challenges  

Traditional, religious and cultural believes are deeply rooted in African societies and these have come a long way. Communities are identified through religion or culture and to change these cultures overnight is not very easy. The Christian societies strongly believe in the bible and would often quote from the bible to support their doctrines and so is the Apostolic sect. They believe in non-medicinal practices and in this age a lot of their followers die especially children because of lack of immunisation and related services. Maternal deaths are high and it is one of the key issues that the government is working on to address. To put up a medical facility in their midst council faced much resistance but took advantage of the government’s legislative support to pernitrate the community. Through repeated awareness campaigns and advocacy for health for all the community is beginning to accept services though the numbers are still very low. Some visit the clinic at night to avoid being noticed by fellow church members to access services. Health personnel have been strongly warned not to disclose identities of anyone who come for services to anyone but to the responsible authority only for monitoring and evaluation purposes. It is common knowledge that the current obtaining economic environment has not been conducive for anyone to do capital projects. Makoni Rural District council through public-private partnerships has been able to make this a success. This will go a milestone in reducing gender-based violence because when c

Immediate results and next steps        

The most interesting result we have seen is moral that is found in the ward and the enthusiasm that the project should be completed early so that they start accessing services. Women are the major beneficiaries while are usually slow when it comes to the uptake of clinical services. Though healthy services are still mobile and limited a police post has been established at the construction site for access by the community and reports from the Victim Friendly Unit indicate that there has been an increase in the reports particularly of gender-based violence being received at the post. This is positive in the sense that now that the community have been empowered they are no longer afraid to report anything that is gender-related among other things. Yes, the community is now informed but there is still great need to provide support services at the clinic and that council through the District Registrar office should set up an office at the clinic permanent or visiting to enable the communities to access birth registration and national identity documents. These particulars apart from being personal documents also help in the close identification of would-be perpetrators. Council and development partners should come up with livelihood support services and income-generating projects to support survivors of gender-based violence. Counselling service is done at Rusape one-stop Centre. It is the council’s intention to encourage the formation of a healthy committee at the clinic. Because the council want to encourage community ownership of the project it will no provide security services at the clinic but the community shall come up with a mechanism to protect their property. Most people who vandalize public property are found within the midst of the same community so if they are meant to protect

Long term Impact  

Gender-based violence as many forms and among them are sexual abuse, economic abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse. Once completed this clinic will offer a wide range of services from ante-natal to post-natal services. Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission will reduce the transmission of HIV and AIDS in carrying mothers. Voluntary Testing and Counselling will be offered at the clinic to the entire community. Most women are not included in planning issues at the household level and are forced to carry even against their wish. Through professional family services, women are now capacitated and can make informed decisions in family matters. Apart from the prevention and reduction of gender-based violence, a clinic will offer support services to survivors of gender-based violence through the treatment of wounds and burns. Clinical management of rape includes physical and genital examinations, post-exposure prophylaxis, tetanus prophylaxis and prevention of pregnancy. There are forced inheritances among the apostolic sect and once the communities are made aware of the effects of HIV and AIDS there is hope that they will change their behaviour. Sexual abuse cases and any other gender-based offences will be reported at the police post located at the clinic.

Learning and how this will be applied

The fight against gender-based violence is never a one-man-band. It requires a multi-sectorial approach. It requires all stakeholders to give their best as far as programming is concerned. Stakeholders do not compete but complement each other for the benefit of the target communities. There is a need for proper monitoring and evaluation of the programmes being rolled out by stakeholders. This would allow corrective measures to be taken in time and avoid waste of limited resources. There is a need for community ownership of projects for them to be successful hence council involved the community from the planning stage to implementation. This has been a good lesson for us. All pieces of the legislature should be put in place and reference should be made to them so that the community understands that whatever stakeholders would be telling them has a legislative back up. This is important because when people are resistant to an initiative, they quickly try to take offence at individuals therefore legislative support in important. Closed communities are very sensitive and require effective programming. Speakers should have a good choice of words and be able to answer questions tactfully in order to hit their agenda home.