WOMEN and girls are bearing the brunt of unpaid care and domestic work curtailing their capabilities in national development, a local empowerment group has said.
The negative impact of the inattention to care policy and unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work has continued to stall gender equality in every country globally.
Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe economic empowerment cluster lead Muchanyara Cynthia Mukamuri told NewsDay Weekender that the most affected were women and girls as house chores or generally care or domestic work is deemed women’s work.
“From time immemorial some circles still believe that the place of a woman is in the kitchen hence no effort is done to recognise the imbalances that exist from unpaid care and domestic work. Men only feature largely in paid care or domestic work,” she said.
Mukamuri said Zimbabwe continued to have very few women in positions of power and decisionmaking, — making recognition of the field difficult.
“Some male leaders have very little understanding of the need to recognise the unpaid care burden of women and girls and how these affect their performance, therefore presenting a detrimental factor to national development,” she said.
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Makamuri called for the creation of work environments that enable women and girls to work without any worry over domestic issues such as breastfeeding.
“There is a need for the government to recognise the burden of unpaid care work while putting mechanisms to redistribute it in order to lessen the burden of women and girls.
“The Minister of Finance should also include the costing of the unpaid care burden reflecting it in the national budget. There should also be the implementation of the constitution of Zimbabwe sections 17, 56, 79 and 80 — which speak of equality and non-discrimination,” she said.
Mukamuri called on the Parliament to enact a policy that covers unpaid care and domestic work to ensure that the burden will not lie with women and girls alone.