Women of Zimbabwe Arise is a civil society group engaged in non-violent protest against repression and injustice. Begun in 2003, the movement now counts some 75,000 Zimbabweans among its ranks. WOZA practices and teaches non-violent action to redeem the promises inherent in the country’s liberation from colonial rule in 1980: political freedom, education, and equality. These rights have been denied the Zimbabwean people during three decades of increasingly authoritarian rule by Robert Mugabe.

WOZA recently received the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for its commitment to defending human rights. The award was created in 1984 “to honor courageous and innovative individuals striving for human rights.”

“At a time where there was not a space for civil society in Zimbabwe, they created that space, and they are doing it at great personal risk,” said Monika Kalra Varma, director of the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. The center “engages in long-term partnerships with human rights activists who have won the [RFK] Human Rights Award to initiate and support sustainable social justice movements.”

Foreign Policy Digest sat down with the group’s leaders, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, to discuss their work and the situation in Zimbabwe.

FPD: What is the mission of Women of Zimbabwe Arise?

WOZA: Essentially, we are mothers who want to speak out on issues affecting us. We are not your classic NGO. We are a social movement with a mandate of showing Zimbabweans that there is a nonviolent way to meet their demands. There is too much focus on politicians and their issues, but not on individual people and our issues.

FPD: What are those issues?

WOZA: Free primary education; freedom of the vote; one man, one vote. What does it mean to vote when the election results are thrown out? We want a more genuine democracy. Of course there are issues of hunger, poverty, and housing. We call these “bread and rose” issues to show that they are more than just “bread and butter.” But we need fuller democracy to meet those demands. We need to worry not about who governs but how they govern.

FPD: How have you managed to grow such a large civil society organization under such a violently repressive regime?

WOZA: We have given people the motivation to act by showing them what can be accomplished through non-violent means. We teach people non-violent conflict resolution strategies so that they become activists.

When we started our demonstrations, people were just quite shocked that women were marching in the streets. As we’ve continued to demonstrate, people come forward and ask what we’re about and why we are demonstrating. They say they’re proud of us.

We weren’t sure if we would get away with it, and we haven’t. Over 500 of us have been arrested, there have been 11 trials, but fortunately no convictions.

We also have a duel strategy. We encourage people to take to streets, but we also ask for international solidarity, so that people talk about what we are doing and are aware of what we’re doing.

When community organizers have been disappeared by the government and there are no names, they get away with it. Now, when WOZA women are held, the phones start ringing immediately, from organizations in other southern African countries and even from the United Kingdom. They police get freaked out, and maybe they’ll think twice about arresting us the next time, and indeed we have seen that it has worked with our members being released.

FPD: What is the role for foreign governments in forging this solidarity?

WOZA: It is a matter of leverage. We need international support to have some leverage on the regime. This will open up space for us to do our work to hold [Robert Mugabe] accountable. It is extremely difficult to do this work. There are laws in place that should make us very afraid. Knowing there is international pressure gives us courage.

But we also need financial support. We need financial support to continue to go into these communities and build democracy from the ground up. Propping up specific personalities is not going to work unless people understand what type of people they should vote for. I know it sounds like a long road, but this is the only way to make reforms in Africa and anywhere.

FPD: It does seem like a long road, and it must feel endless at times. How do you gauge success?

We see change in local communities where people are holding local leaders accountable. We can exert pressure there, and they know that if they do certain things, WOZA will come.

People understand that we are speaking the truth, and this slowly pulls pillars of support away from the dictatorship and makes it more isolated.

We see people’s attitudes change. When our activists are in prison, we are looked at differently. People acknowledge us, saying “you are human rights defenders.”

Police officers – perceived to be the enemy – there are so many that have taken the time to help us.

FPD: WOZA was created to address gender inequality but quickly took on broader goals. How has that origin shaped the course of your movement?

Zimbabwe is a country of extreme gender inequality. Women’s equality, equal rights, the fight against domestic violence – WOZA is still about those things, but the emphasis is on social justice more broadly. It is very difficult to look just at the gender issue when actually everyone is destitute, and everyone suffers violence. Domestic violence is an enormous problem. We have seen women killed for asking men to wear a condom. But this is symptomatic of the norms of a violent state. The country in this sense has gone astray, and it is our duty, as the mothers of the country, to re-teach non-violent norms. That is how we perceive our mission.

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