Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda | Women’s rights are human rights (S10-E8)

 

 

[00:00:00] Melissa Fleming

My guest this week has had a remarkable life growing up in a village during the Zimbabwe War of Independence. She told me how her childhood inspired her to fight for the rights of women and girls around the world.

 

[00:00:13] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Peace is a prerequisite. It's so critical for development, it's so critical for unleashing the potential of the little girls. Peace is so important for enabling mothers, widows to give the best they can.

 

[00:00:41] Melissa Fleming

Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda is UN Assistant Secretary-General and one of the two Deputy Executive Directors of UN Women. From the United Nations, I'm Melissa Fleming. This is Awake at Night. Hi. Welcome and so good to see you here in our studio in New York.

 

[00:01:06] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Melissa.

 

[00:01:10] Melissa Fleming

I want to get to your work for UN Women in a bit, but I'd like to start with your own story, which is really so inspiring and probably the reason that you are where you are at UN Women too. So, let's... But it's so inspiring because it shows what women can achieve. You were born in a small village in Zimbabwe.

 

[00:01:32] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Yes.

 

 

[00:01:33] Melissa Fleming

What did that village look like?

 

[00:01:35] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

The typical rural village where you wake up in the morning and you go to the river, and you water the garden, you grow the vegetables, you go to sell. It was during the war when I was born. So, in every moment we talk about the war, I see the little girl in me with dreams, friends. But also, the school was closed during the war. And then my father died during the war. So also, being raised by my mother as a widow during the war, of course, we had material poverty, but we had the whole family surrounding us. So, at times I just feel the dimensions of poverty. But that did not take away the joy of being with my friends nor the dreams of the little girl in the village.

 

[00:02:38] Melissa Fleming

You had the dreams of the little girl in the village, and you described that there was a war. Could you just quickly remind us of what this war was and then how did it reach you? And your dad had to go off and fight in it?

 

[00:02:52] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Zimbabwe was in the struggle for liberation. So, the war intensified when I was an adolescent girl, and that's when my sister was arrested, martial law. She was taken in. My other sister had to drop out of school and then married early. Then my father just died [of] a natural illness in the village. So that experience of trauma, but also resilience. Just seeing my mother and how she had this courage to continue to hold us together and to continue to be part of finding solutions and to be saying, 'Peace is possible.'

 

[00:03:42] Melissa Fleming

Peace is possible. And you were describing poverty, but I guess war makes poverty worse.

 

[00:03:50] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

It does. It does in so many ways. When we have war, of course, I said schools were closed in my village. And so, every time I hear the word "girls dropping out of school, school dropouts in conflict," I'm like, 'That term does not exist.' It's the war that drops kids out of school. Kids never want to drop out of school. But it also meant losing years of just being able to continue with education, getting a career and...

But also, the other aspect of the war and poverty is whilst we could wake up in the morning and go and water the vegetables and have our sugar cane and our cabbage and our tomatoes, we could not go and sell anywhere because movement was restricted. Because transport was not there sufficiently. Because as little girls we were also so protected because of the situation. So, when we talk about that experience of how conflict and war and crisis exacerbate poverty, it just limits the possibilities of communities to simply be the best of who they want to be with what they have.

So, from that experience of my childhood, I'm like, peace is a prerequisite. It's so critical for development. It's so critical for unleashing the potential of the little girls. Peace is so important for enabling mothers, widows to give the best they can because it was hard for my mother.

 

 

[00:05:50] Melissa Fleming

Eleven kids, I understand. And you are which order and how many of you were girls?

 

[00:05:56] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

I'm the baby in the family.

 

[00:05:58] Melissa Fleming

And the first to be born in the hospital, I believe.

 

[00:06:00] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Yes. And it's also that experience of knowing how our families and our communities are part of the social systems of support. So being born as the last child and being then raised by my brothers and my sisters and them assisting my mother makes me feel very strongly that in our communities in Africa we need to continue, and anywhere in the world, we need to continue to have strong community systems of support.

Because it is those systems of support that enabled some of us to be able to then go to school. I think my mother was happy to have at least one birth in a hospital because when she described the experience of either being giving birth of so many pregnancies by a midwife in the village, and the experience of giving the single birth in a hospital, you can feel the joy that she had this possibility. But this was also an older woman. She was also tired. She was old and I think also the family, the community midwives were also concerned on whether this pregnancy, how they can manage it. I'm happy that at least I was born in a clinic surrounded by doctors and nurses.

 

[00:07:37] Melissa Fleming

You mentioned that the school was closed in your village during how much of the time? Were you ever able to attend school or how did you get an education?

 

[00:07:46] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Schools were closed [in] 1978, 1979. Many schools then opened after independence in 1980. So in between, when my school was closed, I had to go to the nearest town and live with my elder sister, who had just gotten married. Those years when I could not go to school, I had to roast groundnuts and sweet potatoes, and we had to go and sell. It was very painful. My mother and my brothers could not afford for me to go to the mission school, which was open. So, poverty again. So essentially with independence schools were open. Peace creates opportunities for girls.
We just need girls to remain in school.

And so going back to school, even if it was going back to the grade that I was before, was just a joy to meet again with my friend [inaudible]. For us to play sport and netball again, for us to visit other colleagues. So, it was about just enjoying being young girls again and not really be worried about the helicopters, not really be concerned that the school might close again. I really wanted to excel. I wanted to understand so many things. So, I would just sit at my mother's doorstep. 8:00 in the morning as the bus went to Harare, I would wave. 5:00 as the bus came back from Harare, I would wave, but in my heart, I was telling myself, 'I will climb this bus. I will go where it comes from and go, and go, and go, and go.' It was a dream. And so, I read. I did read and today I really read a lot. I read to understand my world because I still want to know where the bus comes from.

 

 

[00:10:09] Melissa Fleming

So that little girl was very curious and found books. And I understand there was another very difficult situation for your people. It was at the time that HIV/AIDS was spreading, and I guess it struck your own family. Your mother also worked to help people with HIV/AIDS. Can you describe what that was like and how it affected you and your family.

 

[00:10:41] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

It was a difficult time to have the experience of disease in the family. Now we talk about intergenerational traumas and multiple layers of trauma. And southern Africa continues to be the epicentre of HIV. And at that time there was a lot of stigma. There was lack of openness to talk about HIV. There was not enough access to healthcare services that respond to HIV like we now have ARVs [antiretroviral drugs]. And I lost members of my family to HIV-related illnesses.

 

[00:11:33] Melissa Fleming

Who did you lose?

 

[00:11:33] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

My brothers.  

 

[00:11:33] Melissa Fleming

Your brothers?

 

[00:11:34] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Yes, and my mother had to take care of all of us emotionally and to also support the family.

 

[00:11:46] Melissa Fleming

Can you just take a minute to describe like what do you remember of one of your brothers and how did you realize that he was sick? And what did you...? I mean, you said that you were a curious little girl too but what did you know about HIV/AIDS and just describe the situation.

 

[00:12:07] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

By then I was a young adult when my brothers passed on. And of course, I had started to read to understand, and we had to look for medical treatment. And of course, the diagnosis would be varied, and people would whisper and would not be sure what exactly are they talking about. And there was no real open access to information. And when the final diagnosis happened in all the cases, including for my elder sister, it was late. But also, even if the knowledge had come earlier, we still did not have the access to ARVs that is there now. I mean, just trying to talk to doctors to find help, the options seemed so out of reach.

 

 

[00:13:13] Melissa Fleming

You mentioned that there was a lot of stigma and a lot of shame and one of the injustices at the time, and this affected your brothers and your sister, obviously, was that there was no access to treatment. And yet across the world, in the United States and in Europe, there was a very effective drug or set of drugs that were able to save people's lives. How did you feel about that? Did you know at the time?

 

[00:13:41] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

I knew because at the time when we had the experience of HIV in my family, I was a young professional. I had graduated as a lawyer. I was working and I was in the UN. We could just see that there are these possibilities for these countries, but we didn't even have the minimum of those possibilities in Zimbabwe and in the region. This is why I feel very strongly in the work that we do that we must address inequalities.

 

[00:14:23] Melissa Fleming

Absolutely. And we'll come to that, but I just want to stick with your experience growing up. And I understand that you were the first in your family not just to be born in a hospital, but also to go to a university. So how did you manage to make it to university?

 

[00:14:41] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

There were three main drivers that enabled me to go to university. One was never giving up. It was also about family. It was also about my brothers, my sisters, friends who would even with the minimum they have, they put something into the pot. I also mentioned friends because I remember going for my A-levels, my advanced levels before uni, my high school. And my brother had managed to pay school fees, but I had not managed to get a uniform. And the school was very strict. You cannot be there without a uniform.

 And I knew that I can't ask my brothers because they've emptied their pockets, and they also had their own kids and their own family. So, my friend, my roommate just said, 'I have three pairs. So, I can give you an extra pair.' So even if it was not the right size, it was a little bit big. Of course, you always tie. This is the beauty of African outfits. You can always... So, I just... So, family and friends were very important.

I think the other [thing] which really made it possible for me at university is that we had government grants. Tertiary education for me was the break point for me to be who I am today. Because reading and writing is important, but it's insufficient and therefore that leap was what I really needed.

 

[00:16:27] Melissa Fleming

When did you first become passionate about women's issues?

 

[00:16:31] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

When I was a little girl, my mother belonged to the village women's club and because I was her last child I would always cling to her skirts and join her for the meetings for her and her peers. And they were involved in the traditional kind of activities then, which would be knitting, sewing, baking. But I realized quickly that it was not just about the knitting and the baking. It was what we called the safe space. It was their space to talk about, 'Oh, and my other child has disappeared. Oh, and my daughter wants to go back to school. And oh, when are the schools opening? And oh, I was battered last night.'

So, I could just sit there playing, listening, understanding that women have issues, and they come together to share these issues in spaces and places. And methodologies and approaches, which at times we don't define in the same way that we do today. And so that was my first... That first awakened my awareness on understanding that we live in a world of inequalities. And when I was at university, the class issues were very much in my face. And I know these are issues which many young women and girls also face.

 

 

[00:18:18] Melissa Fleming

There was also an issue that struck your own family. Your sister was married young.

 

[00:18:24] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Yes.

 

[00:18:25] Melissa Fleming

What was that circumstance and how did it affect you?

 

[00:18:31] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

And indeed, it was one of the reasons why the awareness on social justice issues and on women's rights. So, and she has talked about your own experience as well, so I can talk about that experience, [I have] permission to. As I said, schools were closed during the war. And so, with independence was also the massive euphoria and joy which comes with freedom. But it also came with vulnerability for the girls who were out of school, for the older adolescents, for the young women. And whilst I was a little bit younger, she was a bit older. So, like many, many young women her age, they then got married either to the former combatants or to the loved ones in the village. And so...

 

[00:19:37] Melissa Fleming

How old was she?

 

[00:19:39] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

She was 16. She was 16 going 17. So, for me, that experience, and which we talk about around child marriage is how the war forces girls into marriage. The whole conversation that we had earlier to say what are the impacts of war on women and girls. And I think this is why I'm just so much, I have high respect for my sister. Highest respect for her because despite what she went through - dropping out of school, getting married and raising a family - she's really been also able to say, 'I can step up and I am good enough.' And be a very powerful entrepreneur to support her own family.

So that experience for me is also where injustice and violence that happened to girls, we need to look at it as transient and not to be the full and final story of who these girls are. Because my sister is just awesome and she's more than the experience that she had when she was 16 years old.

 

[00:20:59] Melissa Fleming

I'm so glad to hear she was able to become such a strong woman and a successful woman at that. And I wonder, I mean, you studied law, and I read somewhere that you said that your dad would have been proud of you, that you studied law. Why is that?

 

 

[00:21:18] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

My old man, I miss him. I wish I had had more time with him because he would come home... Because I only had a few years with him and when he passed in 1978, he would come home late in the evening at times a little bit tipsy or having had fights with his colleagues or having whatever experience. And he would always say, 'Nobody will touch me because I am lawyer, because I have my lawyer. And Nyaradzayi, you are going to defend me. You are my lawyer.' So, in my mind, I kept on saying, 'How do I make my father proud?' So, being a lawyer was both from an emotional point of view I was glad to be because I felt I'm also giving something to my father.

But at another level, it was also not such a personal choice. Because when I went to high school, I met the headmaster, I had the qualifications. He looked at me and says, 'What do you want to do?' I said, 'I want to do mathematics, geography and another subject.' He says, 'No, we are giving you history, literature because sciences are too heavy for girls like you.' So, I did not choose the subjects I ended up doing because of stereotyping. But at the end of the day, I said, 'So, with these subjects, what can I do? What is the career choice I have with the subjects that you are recommending for me?' He said, 'You can do law, you can do political science, you can do this.' So, he gave me a full list. And I said, 'I will read and do law because at least my father wanted me to do law.' So, I had that motivation. That's how I came to study law.

 

[00:23:40] Melissa Fleming

And then you ended up joining the United Nations. What was then and what are now your biggest ambitions for improving the situation for women and girls?

 

[00:23:52] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

I think the first is that every woman is a decision maker, and must be, must have the autonomy to make decisions. I'm from Africa, and I see still that issues of women in decision making around property rights is still not fully there. Owning land, you know. So, decision making is part of the core of autonomy. I think this is one big issue.

The second is we need peace. The wars that we see, the crisis, the humanitarian crisis for whatever cause it is, most of it is preventable. I mean, through UN Women, we just launched our Gender Snapshot report and say $4.2 trillion last year spent on military expenditure. And what does it mean for the 119 million kids who are out of school? So, we can buy one helicopter less. We can have that ceasefire so that the little girls like Nyaradzayi do not miss opportunities of their lifetime.

 

 

[00:25:15] Melissa Fleming

What keeps you awake at night when you think about the women and girls out there?

 

[00:25:21] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

What keeps me awake at night is how do we move the conversations from naming the issues, to move the conversation from defining the solutions to actually having the resources for the services to flow and ensure accountability? Women are holding half the sky and there is not enough recognition, valuing of that effort.

I also think about women with disabilities like me. That keeps me awake at night. I feel privileged. I'm aware of my privilege that I can have somebody to help me stand up, somebody to assist me with my wheelchair. That I know people who are just crawling on the sand who do not have any possibilities. They just need a little bit of recognition and a little bit of support for them to be self-sustaining. So, two years ago being involved in this road traffic accident. My car went under a bus and so my leg was broken, my hand was broken. And I could not walk for almost a year. And even now, of course, I have to use my wheelchair. I have to use my clutch here and there. I have to be assisted. So...

 

[00:27:02] Melissa Fleming

That must have been quite a shock to you.

 

[00:27:05] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

It was. It was. It was and I think what it tells me is that the world of inequalities at times is invisible.

 

[00:27:21] Melissa Fleming

So you're seeing it now. You've seen it as a girl. You've seen it as a woman. And now you're seeing it as somebody with a disability. You've also seen it as somebody who founded a trust, an organization in the name of your mother. It's called the Rozaria Memorial Trust. Is there a girl or a woman that benefited from that trust who means a lot to you, who you can describe?

 

 

[00:27:53] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

The trust runs a shelter for survivors of gender-based violence. And most of the clients at the trust are young women and little girls. And so just to see some of them come to the shelter. It's a short-term shelter. That's what we said. But we say it's for three months, but we have seen other clients stay like for a year because the options would be very limited. So, to see them come and to learn skills, whether it's computer training or learning to do bags and learning to...feeling, a sense of feeling and going back to school.

 

[00:28:44] Melissa Fleming

What would you say to a young girl growing up today in a village like yours?

 

[00:28:50] Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Three things. One, you are good enough. Continue to search where the bus comes from. Never let your circumstances determine your future. They're just a steppingstone to who you truly are. And I would say to that little girl, 'Look for the Melissas of this world. Look out for the women and for friends and others who are creating bridges, who are amplifying their voice. You are never alone.'

 

 

[00:29:31] Melissa Fleming

Thank you Nyaradzayi for sharing your story. Thank you for listening to Awake at Night. We'll be back soon with more incredible and inspiring stories from people working against huge challenges to make this world a better and safer place.

To find out more about the series and the extraordinary people featured, do visit un.org/awake-at-night. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and please take the time to review us. It helps more people find the show.

Thanks to my editor Bethany Bell, to Adam Paylor and to my colleagues at the UN: Katerina Kitidi, Roberta Politi, Carlos Macias, Abby Vardeleon, Laura Rodriguez De Castro, Anzhelika Devis, Tulin Battikhi and Bissera Kostova. The original music for this podcast was written and performed by Nadine Shah and produced by Ben Hillier.