NewAfricanWoman Issue 35 - Flipbook - Page 18
NAW Interview
women, first need support at home. If you
look at the prevalence of single mothers,
violence against women and children,
all such things happen in private and are
situations, which incapacitate women.
It is difficult to go out there and make a
difference either academically, in business
or even in politically without an adequate
support system to assist with the many
obligations at home. In the majority
of cases, the absence of a supportive
partner, physical or emotional, is also is a
big problem. Therefore, resolving issues
within the homes is a good starting point.
Then there are barriers in the workplace from the recruitment process right
through to remuneration and fair treatment. The need is for genuine empowerment of women in all spheres, at all
levels. Tokenism or window dressing not
only undermines the incompetent token
female appointee, it also undermines
competent women who are genuinely
capable and empowerment in general.
What is needed is real empowerment,
what is needed is real power, politically,
economically and socially; and I think
that’s where we are being failed because
the playing field isn’t level.
Namibia comes with the history of
the liberation struggle and of course,
women were very much involved
within SWAPO in freeing the country from colonial rule. Sadly today,
in some parts of the continent, the
so-called born-frees (the generation
born after independence) attach
little importance to fighting for freedom, or in this case equal gender
rights for example. Do you think
they lack and should have the same
zest or zeal of the pre-independence
African woman?
It may be a problematic comparison
because its two different generations
faced with different realities. To answer
the question, I don’t think that today’s
generation lacks the zeal of pre-independence women. The pre-independence
freedom fight wasn’t their struggle; they
have zeal for their struggle. Independence
brought political self-determination
while our economies continue to reflect
pre-independence biases and entrench
income inequality.
And how is this new struggle being
fought and won, if that were the
case?
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The “new” struggle is for economic
empowerment for all and not a select
few. For economic empowerment to
be achieved, women are required to be
empowered at the same pace as their male
counterparts. An example of how significant change can happen is how the ruling
party revolutionized the political empowerment of women in Namibia. SWAPO
(which is now the ruling party in Namibia) applied the 50/50 gender principle
on their party list, which determines who,
goes into Parliament. As SWAPO won the
national vote by 80% and this translated
into a jump from 27% female representation in Parliament to 47%. This catapulted
Namibia into the enviable position of
having the fourth highest level of female
political representation in the world.
The lesson here is that quotas can assist
with levelling the playing field at a faster
pace. In contrast to the 47% of women in
political representation, the private sector
lags woefully behind with no indication of
improving the levels of female representation at a faster pace.
Now as you say, women fought in the
struggle for liberation right alongside
their male counterparts but when we talk
about economic empowerment, it’s men
sitting together in the boardroom, in the
absence of the African women.
So any talk of economic empowerment, economic diversification or
industrialization, done in the absence of
women, or anyone else excluded including the youth and people with disabilities,
becomes empowerment with no sensitivity. I think any kind economic exclusion is
bad for Africa.
Coming to the issue that you mentioned earlier, domestic violence, I
think you’re very passionate about
that. That’s one thing that you have
taken on board in the First Lady’s
Office. How bad is this scourge, and
as the President’s wife, many look up
to you in Namibia am sure, the onus
is on you to help put an end to it in
your country where I believe domestic violence is rather bad. After all,
like you said, you cannot economically or politically empower a hapless
abused woman. This is a major
problem isn’t it?
My main focus area is really about the
integration of two economies. You normally have an urban economy and a rural
economy. Most of our population is in