UN Eswatini celebrates International Women's Day with community members of Mafutseni.

Eswatini celebrated International Women’s Day this year under the theme Generation Equality, Realizing Women’s Rights with the rural community of Mafutseni on the 9th of March 2020. An event organized by United Nations Eswatini together with The Knowledge Institute. Mafutseni offered a unique location to commemorate this day as  the community members exemplify the courage, resilience, strength and boldness of the people in Eswatini. Notably Mafutseni is the only constituency – rural or otherwise – which elected a female member of parliament from the community, Honourable Minister of Education Lady Howard Mabuza. The event also presented an opportunity for the community of Mafutseni to take part in the ongoing UN@75 global conversations on “the future we want, the UN we need.”

Born, raised, educated in the rural community of Mafutseni, Honourable Minister of Education Lady Howard Mabuza expressed how proud she was of her community who had not only elected a female member of parliament but had seen two of its community members awarded the prestigious title of the nation’s Woman Farmer of the Year.

“For us to take our progress to the next level, we need a sisterhood of rural women in Eswatini that come together and support each other, let us not let anyone use us against each other to the detriment of our success” the Minister said.

The Minister thanked the organizers of the day for shining a light on the women and girls of Mafutseni and celebrating their various achievements. To end her remarks, she reminded every women in the room of the immense potential they carry and encouraged them to continue working harder and celebrating each other.

UN Eswatini Resident Coordinator, Ms Nathalie Ndongo-Seh reiterated the UN Secretary General, Mr. Antonio Guterres remarks on the day by reminding the audience that the benefits of gender equality are not just for women and girls, but “for everyone whose lives will be changed by a fairer world.” To highlight the fact that gender equality is still a major problem worldwide Ms Nathalie Ndongo-Seh pointed out how,

“women are still excluded from the top table with less than 25% of women being parliamentarians ,and women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, globally.”

While all countries still have a long way to go to achieve gender parity Ms Ndongo-Seh commended the Kingdom of Eswatini, through the leadership of His Majesty King Mswati III, for working tirelessly to ensure that women and girls are protected from sexual and gender-based violence. In closing Ms Ndongo- Seh ensured the community members of Mafutseni that 

"the UN family will continue to support the Government of Eswatini and civil society in designing and implementing educational programmes that promote human rights and gender equality. She reminded the women to "take home, a feeling of hope, empowerment and achievement, for the future is bright and the future is women." 

The event featured a panel of remarkable women who each talked about their individual journey’s and the various obstacles they have overcome as women in Eswatini. Ntombiyenkhosi Mabuza, a disabled woman who is only able to use her feet was featured on the panel and descibed how with only just her feet she is able to teach handiwork to the St Joseph’s Community and sell her merchandise to various shops in the coutry. She thanked organizers for including people living with disabilities on the program and encouraged all people living with disabilities to see her as an inspiration as she did not let her disabilities affect her success. Tokky Hou, the only Swazi women in the textile industry was part of the panel as well. She encouraged the women of Mafutseni to join the textile industry and donated two sewing machines to the community and offered to teach two ladies the art of sewing, in hopes that the next time she came back to Mafutseni there would be an even bigger number of women who had learnt the skill.

The youth were featured on the program and delivered thought provoking and heartfelt pieces, thanking the women that have made a difference in their lives and encouraging the future generation of women to aim much higher and erase all misconceptions about women not being as equally capable as men.

The day ended with women in the Mafutseni community having showed partners what they have done and what they can do, development partners listening and seeing how they can elevate women in Mafutseni and everyone being reminded to continue doing all they can to achieve gender equality by 2030.