PYCD Statement on the Occasion of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence
Platform for
Youth and Community Development (PYCD) joins the whole world in commemorating
16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence. The theme for this year is Orange
the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, and Collect! The 2020 edition is an
opportunity for PYCD to showcase the work it has been doing the whole year.
Despite the negative impact of COVID-19 on our community, we nevertheless
continued to multiply as we dealt with the increasing impact of Gender Based
Violence.
The COVID – 19 pandemic
dominated much of our media headlines and occupied the minds of our government
leaders in Zimbabwe. As the pandemic was unfolding, it aggravated the economic
inequalities faced by women in Chipinge district. The majority of women in Chipinge,
like in most rural communities are mostly involved in commodity production and
trading in fruits and vegetables as well as domestic wares. As the country was
focused on the COVID – 19, a menace was threating the wellbeing of girls and
women within the confines of their homes during the lockdown period. PYCD has
identified a shadow pandemic in the form of gender based violence, and has
recorded numerous cases during the lockdown period.
However, the 16
Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence will be an opportunity to shine
a spotlight on the issue of violence against women and at the same time
creating public awareness on what needs to change to prevent it from happening.
The PYCD lined activities
will start with a launch on the 25th of November 2020, that will
bring together a number of stakeholders who have been working with the organisation,
these include female traditional leadership and female councillors in the
district .Other activities worth mentioning are the netball tournaments that
will be held in 4 wards that have been identified as Gender Based Violence hot
zones in terms of statistics. As rules and regulations to guide compliance to curb
the COVID - 19 pandemic were being enforced, reports of alarming increase in violence
against women were recorded. There will also be a march to be held on the 29th
in Mabee village, where a number of partner organisations will join PYCD in
highlighting the damage caused by Gender Based violence in the border areas of
Chipinge and Mozambique.
PYCD is
convinced that the activities lined up for the 16 Days of Activism will help to
provide a platform for local communities in Chipinge to reflect on the
solutions that are sustainable. We have other lined up activities in the form
of women hearings, Men’s Forum, Door to Door and community meetings with
stakeholders as a way of popularising our key messages of hope. PYCD has been advocating
around the concept of Progressive Ndau
Culture, which is a philosophy to celebrate the positives from the Ndau
culture , a strategy that has helped to demote the harmful cultural practices
that has been responsible for gender based violence as well as dehumanising
girls and women in Chipinge.
The advocacy
will be done in all the 36 wards of Chipinge district under the drive of 25
Gender Activists who are working daily with PYCD and led by PYCD Gender and
Advocacy Officer, Ms Cynthia Gwenzi.Since the advent of the COVID – 19 pandemic,
PYCD has through the work of these grassroots structures collected alarming
statistics of Gender based violence that includes wife butchering, child
molestation and ritual murder, rape and suicide.
PYCD urges the
government of Zimbabwe to come up with gender sensitive COVID – 19 measures
that ensures women’s equal representation in all COVID-19 response planning and
decision-making. Through this process, PYCD strongly believes that these gender
sensitive measures will drive transformative change for equality by targeting
women and girls in all efforts to address the socio-economic impact of
COVID-19. The socio – economic impact of COVID – 19 was seen as the major
contributing factor to gender based violence in the homes during this period of
lockdown.
