As Democracy Advocates: Women HRDs 25 Chapter 3 As Democracy Advocates: Women HRDs 3.1 Women HRDs and democracy Women in Zimbabwe continue to bear the brunt of the impact of turbulent decades of economic and governance decline, which has contributed to violations of fundamental rights and freedoms. Outdated cultural practices and beliefs have further increased this burden. This has caused women HRDs to involve themselves more substantively in asserting their rights and participating in activities to challenge the manner in which they are governed, both at the community level (where they are forced to conform to conduct prescribed by informal state institutions and actors such as traditional leaders, including chiefs and village heads), and in national processes to demand political reform and improved governance, transparency and accountability. Although orthodox democratisation debates have been said to omit women,35 Zimbabwean women have moved with the times, embracing the Beijing Platform for Action, realising the need for them to mobilise ideologically and organisationally in order to benefit from transitional and democratisation processes broadly.36 The capacity to do this has determined how much they benefit, as gender equality and equity principles are yet to be fully reflected in democratisation and transitional processes.37 Since the late 1990s, Zimbabwean women have asserted their right to participate in national processes and to have their voices heard using various interventions and strategies. Their participation became more pronounced at the turn of the millennium, with more women involving themselves in community mobilisation and advocacy in their individual capacities, or working within human rights organisations and through national platforms. Others used the courts (as reflected in Chapter 2). A number of active civil society organisations concentrating on women’s rights, pursuing objectives including social and economic, civil and political justice, were also established and strengthened. Such participation in governance, democracy and accountability initiatives has seen women HRDs being targeted and exposed to systematic human rights violations by state and nonstate actors – oftentimes more vicious than those received by their male counterparts. The law, in its patriarchal framework, has been used selectively against such women HRDs as punishment for their participation in such male dominated activities. For women HRDs within civil society and political spaces, their challenges have increased as a result of the retrogressive patriarchal attitudes that have remained engrained among their male colleagues. Women leaders within civil society – just like women human rights lawyers 35 Hassim S From mother of the nation to rights bearing citizens’ in women’s organisations and democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority ‘ Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwazulu Natal Press p 131. 36 As above 133. Thokozile R and Tiagha NH “The African gender and development index: An African response to he decade review of the Beijing platform for action” in Gender instruments in Africa van der Westhuizen (2005) Midrand: Institute for Global Dialogue p 31. 37