“Passport office closes“, screamed the Financial Gazette newspaper billboards along Samora Machel Avenue as I made my way to work. It’s just another day in Harare where we get to hear more news about what’s in short supply. We have had fuel shortages, forex shortages and now – passports! One wonders what’s next? I was thinking aloud what would happen if there was a shortage of condoms.

My passport issued in 1998 expires in February 2008 and I began using it in 2004. All along it was just one of those documents that you had to have because you never know when you are going to use it. A colleague has just told me to start applying for a new passport because you never know how long it will take to get a new passport issued! I can clearly state that one of my resolutions for 2007 is to apply for a new passport and make sure that it is issued by December.

Early this year one of my friends, whom I will call Jabulani got fed up with Zimbabwe and migrated to South Africa. Even though he had a passport, he left it behind. On asking him why he would not carry his passport he said; “If I overstay in South Africa, the South African government will look for me”. He went on to say; “If I just cross to South Africa with no passport, I’m not known to the authorities”.

Jabulani is one of the hundreds of people that every week risk life and limb to cross the crocodile infested Limpopo river into South Africa. For those that have money, you can travel on the cross border taxis and enter South Africa through the border even if you have no passport. It’s your money that speaks and gets things going.

Women’sNet in South Africa recently published a booklet called “I have listened, I have heard”: digital stories for transformation. The booklet also comes with a CD. The digital stories on this CD were developed by two groups of South African women – lesbian women facing discrimination and violence, and women who experienced domestic violence.

Women’sNet held two workshops, of four days each, at the end of which participants had developed their own digital ‘movies’, using their own words, narration, pictures and text. Computers and software, scanners, digital cameras and audio recorders were used to build the movies.

The stories demonstrate the impact of violence on women’s lives. They also show the intersection of gender and other forms of exclusion or discrimination – such as sexual orientation, poverty and HIV/AIDS. The story tellers also celebrate their survival, their relationships and their perseverance.

Make sure to get a copy of this booklet and the CD to help you in your human rights, women’s rights and gender education and training programmes. For more information contact Women’sNet

Back in January 2005 our electronic activism campaign featured MISA’s Advocacy Campaign Model as a tool to help us in our advocacy and organizing work.

Just lately in Zimbabwe we’ve seen a couple of events and campaigns launched in what appears to be a haphazard manner without due consideration to the many elements that go into making protests and campaigns successful.

I’m not too sure what you think, but 50 women turning out for a protest in downtown Harare doesn’t give me much confidence that the organizers did their best to reach out and communicate with their constituencies and in so doing build as much support as possible. Take a look at this report which comments on the recent WiPSU protest.

And then there’s been the Save Zimbabwe Campaign. I got an email recently from the Save Zimbabwe Campaign Task Force with the title line “Save Zimbabwe in Five Minutes”. If only it were that easy! The Save Zimbabwe Campaign emailed a flyer asking Zimbabweans to make a noise during lunchtime – either hoot your horn, whistle, clap your hands, bang pots and so on.

VOA’s Studio 7 reported on the dismal uptake of this campaign, saying

The less-than-impressive results of protests called in the past two weeks by the Save Zimbabwe Campaign, a coalition of civic organizations and opposition parties have raised doubts as to the effectiveness of the ad hoc opposition organization.

It leaves me wondering how well the Save Zimbabwe Campaign Task Force communicated, lobbied and encouraged participation in the lunch time make a noise protests. It has shades of hastily pulled together stayaways, which always flop because the organizers just don’t get the fact that you can’t snap your fingers, or send out a few flyers and emails and expect your idea to take flight.

More worrying of course is the intimation that

Differences of opinion over the strategy had emerged within the organizational membership of the Save Zimbabwe Campaign (Studio 7′s report)

Wouldn’t it be great if civil society could agree on something, anything? Even a lunchtime “make a noise” campaign!

Another aspect worth commenting on is the language used in the resistance movement in Zimbabwe. The Save Zimbabwe Campaign should know that we don’t want to “cry” for freedom, we want to SHOUT for it. Nor is our noise a symbol of our “distress” it is a symbol of our DEFIANCE.

Again, we make available online the Advocacy Campaign Model which should be used as an integral tool when organizing events and campaigns.

Please click here.

A South African company has launched a new type of condom that you can put on – real quick. It’s called Pronto! Apparently they are easy to use once you get the hang of it. Some text on the Pronto web site reads

Initially it will require a bit of concentration, but take it slowly in the first few times and the process will soon come naturally. You may want to test one on a broomstick or a water bottle first, ‘to get the hang of it’.

Or of course you could do a self-drive kinda thing and test one on yourself whilst masturbating . . . not sure why they don’t suggest that.

My favourite part of the Pronto web site is the “adverts” section where they have a couple of video demos by Jacob and Manto. Amusing and worth a watch.

In order to curb the theft and trafficking of stolen vehicles the Government of Zimbabwe directed that all Zimbabwean car owners change their old registration (number) plates to new digitised ones. Having just returned after 6 hours of administration and queuing to get my new number plates I’m sitting here thinking its no wonder Zimbabwe and other African countries are going backwards faster than forwards. The guy next to me smiled benignly and said, “You just have to be patient”. The trouble is we Zimbabweans are just too patient, which is why we’re stuck with an entrenched president and the highest rate of inflation in the world.

So my day included a long and dusty queue out at Southerton Police Station where I had to move my car onto a traffic island for a while to “queue more safely”. Then I was shunted between Rooms 2, 4 and 3 – in that order. I left my Hivos pen made of recycled car parts in the hands of the last official who was taking longer to tick his boxes because his ballpoint kept on bombing out. Then onto Rowan Martin Building where I sat on a hard bench for several hours shunting slowly to the front whilst wondering what to do with the brazen queue jumpers: attack them with the old metal number plates I was clutching, or ignore them.

Light relief came in the form of Norman the Municipal Policeman who intermittently marshalled the people gathered and grumpy on the bench. At one point he stared at me intently and asked me whether I use Bubble Bath. I was momentarily taken aback, say 5 seconds – this is Zimbabwe after all and anything goes – and said yes, thinking that he was going to ask me for a recommendation for what to buy his wife for Christmas. Instead he said he’d be right back and disappeared into a back room only to emerge a short while later clutching a 2-litre bottle of Fern Bubble Bath imported from Botswana. Unfortunately it looked more like dishwashing liquid than anything else.

Norman said that he was travelling to Francistown tomorrow night to pick up some more stuff to sell: fish, tinned beetroot and of course bubble bath because, “you know how things are here, we can’t survive like this, we have to do other things”.

Then another guy asked me if I had any cars to sell, even non-runners. I said nope but the one I’m driving will shortly be a non-runner. This of course was some light flirtation (on his part) because he soon moved on from cars to wanting my telephone number. Rather give me yours I said, being bold. So now I’ve got a yellowed piece of stationery – a Gross Mass Certificate from the Ministry of Transport – in my pocket, with Norman’s phone number on it.

As well as – you guessed it: Romeo’s.

This is one of my favourite times of year. No, not the upcoming festive season, I mean 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. For these two weeks, the reality of the sexual violence that women and girls experience every day of the year is taken seriously and reflected in newspapers and by organisations.

Groups like Amnesty International and Take Back the Tech are running special campaigns to mark the event.

Amnesty International reports that at least 1 in 3 women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. In Zimbabwe, discussion of the Domestic Violence Bill has made many of us more aware of the brutality many women endure in their own homes. Childline received more than 34,000 calls between January – September this year. 70 percent of these calls were related to sexual abuse of children.

Just this week, as WOZA took to the streets to mark International Human Rights Defender’s Day, 36 members of WOZA, including six mothers and babies, were arrested in Bulawayo. These 36 were among the 200 who had assembled peacefully. The police ruthlessly attacked the women, and over 25 needed medical attention for injuries incurred from baton sticks, and from trampling when the crowd tried to escape the police assault.

And it’s not over yet. I’ve just received the following email from WOZA

Threat to Jenni Williams

The 36 WOZA/MOZA members arrested yesterday remain in police custody. It has emerged that there have been threats to separate Jenni Williams from the rest of the group in order to severely beat her or worse. WOZA’s lawyer has also been threatened with arrest,for “interfering with the course of justice” whilst trying to attend to her clients. You are requested to call Bulawayo Central Police Station and let them know that the world is watching and will not tolerate further assaults on WOZA members. Their numbers are +263 9 72515, 61706, 63061, 69860.

Violence against women takes all forms – it happens in the home, in the village, in town, at work, at school, and on the street. We should have 365 days of activism, not just 16. We should be seeing this sort of press coverage and mobilisation everyday.

It’s time that we finally acknowledge just how pervasive violence against women really is.