Access to information opens opportunities to women in rural areas

Access to information opens opportunities to women in rural areas

By Florence Zirima

Women in Buhera are set to benefit from empowerment projects which have been dinied to them due to lack of primary documents.

Those who spoke to journalists on a UN Women media tour in Buhera recently said the access to information on National registration documents will open many opportunities to them.

The government in partnership with UN Women helped in the construction of a registration centre in Buhera Ward 32 so that people access primary documents easily within their locality.

Ms Juliet Tsitsi Tirivavi the Community Development Officer in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprise welcomed the initiative.

“When women want to apply for loans they can not access these loans because they do not have IDs.

The construction of the registration centre will go a long way in helping women in this Ward because they can now get primary documents without walking long distances so that when we are working with them they have necessary documents for identification”, she said.

She also added that the access to information is helping to reduce gender based violence (GBV).

“Women are also getting information on GBV from empowerment programmes and this empowers them so that they are able to stand for their rights”, Ms Tirivavi said.

Beauty Mapfumo a project representative in Buhera Ward 32 said most women are missing empowerment projects because they do not have IDs.

“We have a programme where we are helping women with machineries to start their businesses and most of them can not get them because they do not have IDs and the registration centre will help women to get IDs”, she said.

Access to documentation is a key human right and without identity documentation, people are deprived of their right.

Buhera is a district that is male dominated, men do not fully support women to go and get IDs that are crucial to start projects and this makes them easy to oppress them.

Through the information that women are getting from workshops, women now know that they have a right to access their IDs and birth certificates for their children.

“We really appreciate the information we are getting from UN Women workshops because we have been told that we can now go and get our IDs and birth certificates for our children even if their fathers are not willing to go.

When they want their details to be put on the children documentations they will pay a fine of 50 US dollars”, said one of the women in Buhera.

The Councilor for Buhera ward 32 Sulpicious Nyikadzino told journalists that the access to primary documents will also help women and girls who are affected by GBV where IDs and birth certificates are required for legal actions to take place.

The Freedom of Information Act gives citizens and media practitioners’ access to information as it is provided by the Constitution Section 62. This law ensures that any citizen or journalist can approach the public bodies with request to information.

It also enables women, girls, youth and all vulnerable groups to participate in democracy, human rights and accountability as they can easily access information that contributes to monitoring of usage of public resources.