Women Human Rights Defenders in Zimbabwe
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Table of contents
Chapter 1: Women Human Rights Defenders in Zimbabwe ............................................................ 1
1.1 Why women HRDs? ................................................................................................................ 2
1.2 Human Rights framework supporting women HRDs ....................................................... 3
1.3 Overview of challenges faced by women HRDs ................................................................. 4
Chapter 2: Litigants and Litigators: Women HRDs ........................................................................... 8
Part A: Litigants ....................................................................................................................................... 8
2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 8
2.2 Women litigating social, economic and cultural rights...................................................... 9
2.3 Women litigating civil and political rights ........................................................................ 14
Part B: Litigators .................................................................................................................................... 18
2.4 The last line of defence .......................................................................................................... 18
Chapter 3: As Democracy Advocates: Women HRDs ..................................................................... 25
3.1 Women HRDs and democracy ............................................................................................ 25
3.2 Women HRDs and participation ......................................................................................... 26
3.3 Women and peace building ................................................................................................. 32
Chapter 4: Profiling the Woman HRD in Zimbabwe ....................................................................... 35
4.1 Why the woman HRD? ......................................................................................................... 35
4.2 Community activists ............................................................................................................. 35
4.3 Human rights/ democracy activists ................................................................................... 36
4.4 Human rights Lawyers ......................................................................................................... 39
4.5 Media practitioners ................................................................................................................ 44
4.6 Medical practitioners ............................................................................................................. 44
4.7 Sexual and reproductive rights activists ............................................................................ 45
4.8 Women’s/ Children’s rights activists ................................................................................. 46
Chapter 5: Towards a Conducive Environment for Women HRDs ............................................. 48
5.1 Why the need to create an enabling environment? .......................................................... 48
5.2 Recommendations for institutional reform ........................................................................ 49
5.3 Recommendations for law reform ....................................................................................... 51
5.4 Recommendations to CSOs .................................................................................................. 52
5.5 Recommendations to the media .......................................................................................... 52
Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 54