Ahead of the World Environment Day which is commemorated every year on June 5, the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCZ) in coordination with various stakeholders held a Women and Environmental Rights symposium at the Rainbow Towers Hotel in Harare on Wednesday.
The seminar was attended by senior Government Representatives, partners, civil society and academics to name but a few for the sole purpose of collective action advocacy on key environmental issues and their effect on women.
“In this patriarchal society, women hardly own land unlike their male counterparts i.e male in-laws, fathers, brothers and husbands who are prioritized first when land is being allocated”, said Ms Gloria, a representative of the Women in Agriculture group.
“However, women and children are the ones slaving away in the same fields. It is unfair for them to just be laborers while men own the actual land rights become society has made it that way”.
“We demand that the government and relevant authorities implement the recognition and redistribution of unpaid carework. When men and women take a break from farm work, women continue working by cooking and making sure the family is refreshed while their male counterparts are usually rested under a tree. So in actual fact, women do not rest. This needs to be addressed”, she said.
In this regard, the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe continues to be actively engaged on the issues of causality and impacts of climate change on mobility, agriculture, safety and general welfare of women who are often vulnerable.
The symposium explored the links between climate change and gender based violence (GBV), early child marriages, school dropouts, abuse of power by authorities and unfair land allocation issues with a particular focus on how ultimately, women are affected most.
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