Zambia: Challenge women?s unequal position through the Constitution

The Zambian Constitutional Review Commission’s (CRC) recently released draft Constitution Report is a blow to the country’s efforts towards gender equality. Despite the obvious benefits for women’s empowerment, a recommendation to enshrine gender equality in the Zambian Constitution has been excluded from the report.

 

In 2003 the Zambian government initiated the review of the Republican Constitution, in a process led by Willa Mung’omba. One of the terms of reference for the CRC was to facilitate the incorporation of gender issues into the Constitution. However, the church, civil society groupings and the student and women’s movements chose not to make recommendations to the Commission as they wanted the Constitution to be adopted through the Constituent Assembly which they believed could address their concerns.

 

In response to the absence of submissions to the CRC in this regard, Zambia’s poorly-funded Gender in Development Division (GIDD) in the Cabinet Office made the recommendation. While one would have thought that the Zambian women’s movement would have been at the forefront of submissions to ensure that a key recommendation would have been that of enshrining gender equality in the Constitution; this was not the case. They chose not to submit their recommendations to the CRC.

 

While their demand for the Constituent Assembly may have been important and the reasons for their position valid, this does not detract from the fact that making the submission would have gone a long way in showing that the Zambian women’s movement are more than talk, but action.

 

GIDD Acting Permanent Secretary Lawrence Musonda has condemned the Zambian women’s movement, led by the Non-Governmental Organisation Coordinating Committee (NGOCC) for shunning the CRC and says they are a let down to what he terms “a noble fight for gender equality in the country.”

 

Musonda says: “It is the GIDD’s view that if the provisions in the recently released draft Constitution are protected into the final Constitution, Zambia would move a giant step ahead in achieving our national vision of achieving full participation of both women and men in the development and attainment of equality and equity between the sexes.”

 

Forty years of independence and three Constitutional Review processes have not substantially changed the position of women in Zambia, who, according to a press release issued by the NGOCC in 2003: “remain subordinated, with limited access to resources and high levels of illiteracy.”

 

NGOCC Chairperson, Lucy Muyoyeta attributed the position of the Zambian women’s movement with regard to the CRC to the disappointments they endured at the hands of previous governments where their submissions to commissions were rejected.

 

The gender blindness of the Zambian Constitution has the effect of perpetuating women’s inferior position in society including their low economic status, high levels of illiteracy and poverty, poor health status and physical and psychological violence perpetrated against them. Women in Zambia are seen as tools to be used for development as opposed to being partners in national development processes.

 

This is a notion that should and can be challenged through Constitutional provisions. It is not clear when the final Constitution will be ready, although President Mwanawasa has stated that people should not be surprised if it is ready by 2015. Does this mean that half a century after independence will see Zambian women in the same marginalised position?