Thandiwe Chidavarume
Women and Land in Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe)
My name is Thandiwe Chidavarume, I am a Zimbabwean and live in Zimbabwe, I am a woman’s rights activist, I work with women especially from rural areas whose rights are always infringed by politicians, multinational companies and rich people in their areas. My work is usually to raise awareness, building solidarity and campaigning for justice in such doing I meet with a lot of challenges sometimes serious threats by the perpetrators who would want the women and communities to remain ignorant of their rights for them to continue manipulating, abusing and stealing from them. For solidarity purposes we have created a women’ land rights movement in Zimbabwe. This is a brain child of the rural women’ assembly initiative. The movement is an advocacy platform where women meet to share challenges and plan wayforward on how to push for changes in their current precarious situations. What I believe that rights goes hand in hand with power and as such they can not be given freely meaning we need to fight for our rights if we want to enjoy our rights.