Misihairabwi-Mushonga under fire for calling for sex boycotts

Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga has come under fire from former opposition leader Margaret Dongo, for calling on women to embark on sex boycotts to force their husbands to go and register to vote.

Misihairabwi-Mushonga, who is also the MDC Secretary General, is reported to have told a rally in Matabeleland North province that women are the hardest hit by economic hardships, so it was up to them to help change the status quo.

"If your husband has not yet gone to register to vote then you must deny him his conjugal rights. If he does not have a registration slip to show that he has registered then do not give in," she is quoted telling supporters in Cross Dete, Hwange.

But Dongo said this is not "wise" advise to give to people who have not been empowered socially, mentally and economically.

Dongo told SW Radio Africa: "Zimbabwean men are very tricky and our culture is very tricky. You will find a lot of women being thrown out of their homes. After all rural women are not well empowered in terms of information and in terms of being able to stand for themselves and protecting themselves.

"You cannot use women to use sex to pressure men to go and register. Besides, if men register, who are they going to vote for in those constituencies?"

She said 33 years after independence Zimbabwean women are still under-represented in politics and yet women represent 52 percent of the society.

Dongo encouraged gender activists to use their power to mobilize more women to participate and vote for each other rather than use their 'bottom-power' to encourage men to vote. "We don't only have the bottom power. We have other powers rather than the bottom. The bottom is for luxury," Dongo added.

The former opposition leader said more women should have been encouraged to run for parliamentary elections and not wait to participate through the proportional representation system.

Sex boycotts have been used in a number of countries as a method of non-violent resistance, to protest issues ranging from employment to anti-war campaigns, although some critics say it isn't very successful because it starts 'wars' between sexes.

A couple of years ago a prominent Togolese rights activist and opposition leader, Isabelle Ameganvi, was on the receiving end of verbal attacks from men in her country when she urged women to withhold conjugal sex for a week, to force their husbands to demand the resignation of President Faure Gnassingbé, who took power in a fraud-ridden elections.

In 2009 gender activists in Kenya encouraged women to go on a week-long sex ban in protest over the infighting that plagued the country's coalition government. At the time the executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers Patricia Nyaundi, one of the organisations in the Kenyan campaign, told the BBC that they had asked wives of the Kenyan president and Prime Minister to join in. "Great decisions are made during pillow talk, so we are asking the two ladies at that intimate moment to ask their husbands: 'Darling can you do something for Kenya?'" Nyaundi said.