ZimRights join the world to celebrate 16 Days of Activism

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) has said it joins the world, especially women and educational rights defenders, in commemorating the 16 Days of Activism against Gender based Violence for this year.

The 16 Days of Activism run from today, November 25 on the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women, to December 10, the International Human Rights Day.

The theme for this year, From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World: Make Education Safe for All, draws attention to violations outside the home, and in the broader community with a specific focus on education.

"Making education, as a fundamental human right, safer for all genders is an important step in advancing the whole society," said ZimRights.
"The Zimbabwean society is already burdened by the cultural, attitudinal and policy remnants of a system and tradition that for decades discriminated against women in terms of education opportunities. Hence the need for continued vigorous efforts to promote women's access to education and end gender discrimination, and violence in the learning set-up."

The organisation said it is disturbing that recently the riot police assaulted with batons the female student activists and leaders, who were peacefully campaigning for the right to education in Harare.

"The crackdown led to the detention of 16 female students, and injuring of numerous of them. Such brutality against women and female education rights defenders is an uncalled for practise and the government of Zimbabwe must honour its commitments and mandate as espoused in the new Constitution to end gender discrimination and violence," said ZimRights in a statement.

"Educational institutions must continually endeavour to forestall any possibilities of women and girls being sexually bribed and abused in exchange for better educational grades, or raped. Furthermore, there must be no concealment of such violations should they occur, but progressive availability of support in the form of public awareness and counselling."

The human rights watch dog said recently, large populations of people in the country have been displaced by natural disasters, or evictions from farmland.

"The effect has been that basic rights to do with social services such as education are compromised for the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) especially in the case of girls," said ZimRights.

"Government in 2015 admitted that 1000 pupils from victims of flood disasters of February 2014 at Chingwizi in Masvingo dropped out of school due to hunger and long distances they have to walk.  Government must increase its social support in terms of infrastructure and relevant resources to make education safer for all, including in informal settlements, to avoid exposing vulnerable groups such as young women to circumstances of discrimination."

The organisation said as part of its efforts in the fight to make education safer for all, ZimRights has been challenging the introduction of Grade 7 examination fees, and the general commercialisation of basic education services, especially as it affects girls in orphaned and child-headed families.

"Zimrights unrelentingly urges the government to act towards ensuring that educational opportunities are widely opened to all people in the country regardless of social status, and in a way that guarantees no direct, or implied, gender discrimination," it said.