| Today Citizens’ Manifesto celebrates the brave, hardworking and inspirational women across the entire globe, cementing the 2021 United Nations (UN) International Women’s Day (IWD) Theme, “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” This theme finds its relevance in the manner and rate which women are excluded in fundamental decision-making processes as well as the work that remains to be done to reverse this trend. Women historically have been victims of exclusion and this presents us with a generational task to advance the cause of women emancipation and take affirmative action towards resolving the imbalance. We celebrate all women who have dedicated their lives to foster social change and build better guided by principles of equality. It is sad to note that in this day and age our societies are still breeding spaces for gender stereotyping. Women are treated as second class citizens in most cases at home, at the workplace and in society in general. The patriarchal status quo suffocates the women depriving them of reaching their full potential. Women are the largest untapped reservoir in most countries, and this continues to hold back the broader development and progress of nations and humanity. We today #ChooseToChallenge the status quo in order to foster broader developments. We thus condemn oppressive actions such as arrests, rape, abductions and torture that governments have taken towards women who have courageously stood for their socio-political and economic rights, including in Zimbabwe. As Thomas Sankara said: “There is no true social revolution without the liberation of women.”Having in mind that the fastest way to change society is to mobilize the women. We therefore call for the realization of gender justice. Gender justice is one of the Citizens’ Manifesto’s pillars. We declared 2021 as the #YearOfThePeople #UmnyakaWaBantu #GoreReVanhu. In the #YearOfThePeople we seek to amplify the voices of all women and ensure their inclusion in all decision-making processes. #YearOfThePeople #UmnyakaWaBantu #GoreReVanhu #IWD2021 #InternationalWomenDay |
| #SununguraZimbabwe!! |