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called on Government to support women’s empowerment initiatives as they commemorate the 100th International Women’s Day today.
IBWO president Dr Jane Mutasa said the country’s ongoing indigenisation and empowerment drive should give priority to women, who constitute 51 percent of the population.
“IBWO’s mandate is to represent the interests of women in all business processes. As such, I have taken a keen interest in what has been happening since the announcement of the indigenisation regulations in February last year.
“What has worried me is that the regulations which are aimed at benefiting the previously disadvantaged Zimbabweans are framed in a manner that does not support the participation of women in the mainstream economy.
“These regulations, meaningful as they may be, fall short of clearly explaining what the role of women should be and this has fitted well in the patriarchal nature of our society and as we speak now the male counterparts have already started benefiting,” said Dr Mutasa.
She said it was important to locate where the women could be in the next five years after the indigenisation process.
She added that women have been disadvantaged more than their male counterparts and any effort to redress such anomalies should deliberately empower them.
Dr Mutasa said women had until independence, been treated as minors, requiring the consent of the father or the husband to open a bank account or acquire a loan from any bank.
“While this has changed and in the last 30 years, we have been enjoying an equal treatment with our male counterparts, we also feel that there should be positive discrimination aimed at benefiting women and the indigenisation programme is an opportunity that should not be missed,” said Dr Mutasa.
“This is very important because we are not interested in seeing a policy that leaves the other half worse off.”
Zimbabwean women have been unable to fully benefit from empowerment programmes due to their inability to organise themselves in a manner that enables them to fully participate in the mainstream economy and lack of financial resources.
“It is worrying that most business organisations are are male-dominated leaving us wondering where the women are.
“It is time we graduate from the small businesses and start running bigger businesses.
“It is only after we have engendered the indigenisation regulations that we would be able to see the participation of women in the mainstream economy but until we do that, it is only a few males who are going to benefit and we would be left wondering if it benefited all Zimbabweans.”
This year’s International Women’s Day commemoration will be held at the Chinhoyi University of Technology.