Lets hear it for the Girls!
on A Zambian Experience (Zambia), 11/Mar/2011 13:55, 34 days ago
This week marked the 100th anniversary of International Womens' Day and even in Chipata, women (and men) were celebrating this important occasion. In fact Zambia is among a host of developing countries where IWD is a national holiday! So having been given the right to a day off, I went to check out what was happening on the streets of Chipata and even joined the women in a marching parade through the centre of the town to support them.In Zambia the tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts. It has the equivalent status of Mother's Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers. Even in the local supermarket I was greeted with a‘Happy International Womens Day’ greeting from a young shop assistant. The atmosphere was electric as hundreds of women took to the streets in their womens' groups, clubs, church groups, organisations and friendship groups to mark the day and to advocate for access to all things including ‘ better education’, ‘better health care’ and a society free from abuse, poverty and exclusion.Despite the advances in equality for women in Zambia, I’m still surprised to see the amount of women who still die in childbirth especially in the rural areas of Chipata District. Zambia boasts advancements in mobile phone technology across the country, yet some women still feel that its a privilege to have a midwife, nurse or Doctor present during childbirth. They are not all aware that it is their right.Despite the fact that the Provincial Secretary of Chipata is a woman, I’m surprised that there are very few Zambian female politicians or Heads of business. I think Zambia has a long way to go until there is true equality, but judging from the voices of the females marching through Chipata on Tuesday, I can imagine it won’t be long till we see Zambia’s first female president. We wait and see!Happy International Womens' Day!