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Ruth Butaumocho Gender Forum
Last Friday, gender activists across Zimbabwe took time off their busy schedules to launch the Orange Day, a United Nations’ initiated campaign to end violence against women and girls across the globe.

Orange Day, which debuted in Harare last week, is not a new concept but is now being commemorated in other countries across the globe following its successful launch last year.

It is a day set aside on the 25th of every month to raise awareness and trigger action to end the global scourge of violence against women and girls, as nations scale up efforts to eradicate this social ill.

Fronted by UN Women and several local partners including the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development, the message on the launch held in Harare came out clear and unequivocal on the need to treat gender based violence, as a social ill that should not be caged within the 16 days of activism period, but as a daily human rights national issue.

Far from being an orange affair- where one had to show their solidarity by turning up dressed in anything orange — the launch reinforced the need to revive the gender based violence debate, long considered to be a purely woman’s affair.

It also presented the nation with an opportunity to take the gender based violence issues to the public sphere, an issue that had not been getting much attention on the national fora.

The few occasions that news on gender based violence has received prominence is when such bizarre incidences like the stripping of the hapless girl occur, the publication of statistics on rape, divorce and issues of similar nature that are hard to ignore and border on the extreme.

However, despite it being a highly publicised affair, men were conspicuous by their absence on the Orange Day launch.

Save for a few, the majority decided to stay away from such an important occasion that would have given the event an impetus it needed to hit the ground running.

While it is now clear whether the majority of men deliberately ignored the launch, or they were not invited in their numbers, their absence was counter-productive and will in the long run derail efforts other stakeholders are making in raising awareness on the gender based violence discourse.

With the lethargic attitude that some men show on gender based violence, then the fight for gender equality as a strategy in fighting this social ill is far from over.

And the problem of gender based violence alone will not be solved without the inclusion and involvement of men because they are major perpetrators of this social vice, in as much as women are guilty of the same.

In a patriarchal society of ours, where males are head of families, institutions and rule and lead their subjects, by the virtue of the power invested in them as cultural and religious leaders, they cannot deliberately turn a blind eye to such an important issue.

Men cannot claim to be protectors of such a community, bleeding under serious effects of psychological and physical abuse.

With the cultural justification of spousal battering as a form of discipline, men need to come aboard such programmes and promote positive masculinity, which encourages them to be loving, caring fathers and partners who are supportive of gender equality, women’s empowerment and protection.

Once that has been achieved the nation is rest assured that the fight against gender based violence would not continue to be a women’s battle but a national initiative premised on men’s understanding and appreciation of causal factors of violence across our communities, and how that can be eradicated. Men have a crucial role to play, as public advocates in both speaking out against violence against women and girls, and in defying the destructive stereotype that serve to normalise gender inequality, which in the long run promote gender based violence.

The gender based violence issue cannot continue to be fought in a corner, away from the madding crowd as is the case currently, but the fight should be taken to the main arena, for everyone to appreciate how brutal, forceful, and damaging it is.

Lives have been lost, people have been maimed and the effects are quite tragic. With Zimbabwe now implementing Zim-Asset, women are key players in this strategic and important stage of Zimbabwe’s history.

Danish envoy, Erick Brogger Rasmussen, couldn’t have explained it better during the Orange Day launch when he said while progress on gender equality and women’s rights is a goal in its own right; it remains a critical factor in achieving poverty reduction and sustainable development.

And naturally research has shown that a lot of resources will remain unexploited in terms of wealth creation and inclusive economic growth when women are not mainstreamed in economic events and programmes taking place across.