Many important elections took place in 2023 and at least 64 countries are holding national elections in 2024. In Zimbabwe, Womankind’s partners played a crucial role in strengthening women’s intersectional political participation in their 2023 national elections.
Here, civic space has become very restricted. With the two main political parties actively undermining women’s representation at all levels in the election, these restrictions threaten how women’s rights organisations can monitor democratic electoral processes.
Through sharing resources with our partners, they were able to respond to the needs of their communities, to support their political engagement and ensure their safety in the run up to and during the 2023 elections.
Womankind shared flexible resources with Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ) and Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU) through the Collective Action to Realise Equality (CARE) project with funding from Comic Relief. As a result, partners created a safeguarding mechanism for women which included trainings on digital security and physical safety for those involved in observing the election. WCoZ and WiPSU also led the co-creation of an election strategy across different sectors, centring the work and interests of women across the intersections of youth, disability, LBQ and rural movements. This helped shape every piece of the women’s movement’s electoral work.
CARE partners were also provided with funds to support the work, safety and awareness of women standing for leadership and participating in communities around the elections. WCoZ used these funds to support women leaders gain accreditation to be official election observers and for voter education campaigns. WiPSU used the funds to support current and aspiring women elected leaders in the nomination court processes related to the elections. This provided transport costs to get to the courts, airtime to make phone calls to the electoral commission, and access to safety measures, medical help and support. Overall, these funds addressed the limitations that human rights defenders usually face in traditional safeguarding systems. These flexible funds enabled and strengthened the abilities of women candidates, observers and human rights defenders to do their vital work.
Womankind’s partner Pakasipiti used funds from the ‘Lalela’- Hear Us project to engage LBTQ+ community members in electoral, political and democracy platforms. With the funds, Pakasipiti:
- Launched an awareness raising campaign to ensure community members knew what they needed to vote, for example bringing ID and how to fill out the ballot paper;
- Provided information on the issues, candidates, as well as electoral safety and security, including around gender identity and expression;
- Held a conversation about what political participation means to them and their communities, and how elections and electoral violence affect queer bodies due to practices such as sex-segregated lines for voting;
- Supported community members to participate in electoral observer training, and created a safe platform to check in with each other, share updates during the electoral period and report incidents of violence;
- Worked with grassroots groups in different regions to leverage their contacts and local knowledge, along with strengthen connections between the community.
Having queer people participate as electoral observers helped to offset some fears around queer participation or attacks related to the elections. It was a way to re-claim political space for the community regardless of gender expression or sexuality. During the electoral period, Pakasipiti noted a shift in rhetoric from previous governments. They saw less homophobic attacks in the form of anti-LBTQI+ rhetoric.
