ZIMBABWE: Govt Committed to Gender Equality -- Official

Date: 
Monday, August 23, 2010
Source: 
AllAfrica
Countries: 
Africa
Southern Africa
Zimbabwe
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
Participation
Human Rights

The inclusive Government is committed to achieving gender equality in line with the Sadc Protocol on Gender and Development, as it is a key ingredient in the development of society, a senior official has said.

Women's Affairs, Gender and Community Development Deputy Minister Jessie Majome said the Global Political Agreement was clear on the principals' commitment to see gender equality prevailing in Zimbabwe.

She was speaking during the launch by the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists of two books the union commissioned at The Book Café in Harare last Tuesday.

"The importance of gender equality in politics lies in that it contributes to the betterment of society. When you look at the media, statistics of women in the media directly or indirectly mirrors the statistics of women in politics," said Ms Majome, adding that there were very few women editors and owners of media houses in the country.

She expressed hope that one of the books, Women Silently Walk to Parliament, whose production was funded by MS Zimbabwe, should be handy as it shows how the media covered female political aspirants.

This may lead to the media looking at women differently so that women may not "walk silently to Parliament, both the House of Assembly and Senate" in the future.

The four-chapter book has statistics of the coverage of women in both the private and public media in the run-up to the March 2008 harmonised elections.

It also tries to proffer reasons for this as well as giving recommendations on the way forward.

The second book, Journalists or "Enemies of the State", a project funded by International Media Support, gives a synopsis of the challenges Zimbabwean media faced from the turn of the millennium to 2005.

The Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe's publications, The Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday were closed after the papers' failure to register with the Media and Information Commission as required by law at that time.

The Tribune and Weekend Tribune followed suit after failing to inform the MIC of essential changes on the papers. The closure of the media houses threw hundreds of employees onto the streets.

The book, which looks at these challenges in both private and public media, print and electronic, is a cry to authorities to consider the plight of employees in such circumstances.

Several journalists, outgoing Ambassador of Sweden Mr Sten Rylander and prominent writers attended the book launch.