Empowerment and Protection - Stories of Human Security Oct. 2014 | Page 90

“ ut of 33 traditional
O
leaders in the area,
only three of us are
women.”

ZIMBABWE

13 (WORLD BANK

GRAPHIC
n (2013)

In Mutare, Manicaland province, a counsellor
talks of how poor health services affect the
most vulnerable in society: “I do counselling for
orphans in the area who have been left destitute
or in the care of elderly grandparents. Most of
them lost their parents to HIV/AIDS and now
have to head households or go to orphanages.
This weighs down on the community as most of
2014A)
these children need to be schooled.” Last but not
least are the issues of poverty and corruption:
“There is a problem of corrupt local officials
who solicit bribes from widows to process their
=10.000.000
claims. I feel that what drives their behaviour is
that the local authority has been failing to pay
their salaries for more than six months now and
they then have to resort to unscrupulous ways of
earning a living.”
Traditional and gender roles
The interviews highlight the sometimes negative
effects of traditional or conservative views on
human security. On gender roles, some of the
interviews illustrate that many men have not as yet
accepted equality with women; for many, women
must remain subservient to men. The national
media often report on women battered regularly
by their husbands and some of them are eventually
killed. Many women cannot take leadership
positions because they believe men are superior to
them. Women need to be empowered so that they
can claim their rightful place of being equal to men
and demand equal treatment and respect for their
human dignity. The absence of that recognition
should be seen as a human security issue in many
communities.
In the Nkayi district, a MDC-T political leader and
ward councillor speaks of the problems caused by
traditional beliefs in witchcraft. In his community
it is “a major source of conflict.” He points out
that: “I was once involved in defusing one such
incident. The local soccer team which played in
the ECLF peace tournament was involved in a
conflict with a local entrepreneur over payment
for a service. Their failure to pay led to the
businessman threatening them with witchcraft
and other uns V6