ACCZ BISHOPS CONFERENCE 2014 REPORT

The annual Bishop’s conference organized by A .C. C. Z and affiliate churches of close to 700 with a gross national following of about 7,3million was a portal of inspiration and a place where new ideas were embraced in the pursuit of promoting national peace embracing the rights of children and women in cultural values.

The conference attracted approximately 1200 Bishops from various churches who thronged the conference in solidarity with A. C. C. Z.The conference provided an interdisciplinary platform for different churches from diverse backgrounds to convene in an attempt to foster and promote national unity and in the same breath inculcating the championing of women and children’s rights in their churches.

The conference was indeed an inspiration and a watershed event with regard to the plight of women and children .The Bishops summoned the collective ill of churches and organization to unite in the fight against all forms of child and women abuse. It was highly resolved that Diabolical forces are eternal, and they are formidable and they exist today.

The conference agenda also tirelessly strove to iron out issues that lead to the abuse of women and children. Bishop Sibanda who is ACCZ Secretary for Legal, peace, justice and reconciliation.. After introducing himself he highlighted that his presentation was chilling as it involves those who were abused after having gone to an allegedly divine place of assembly. He explained the theme “The churches’ role in promoting national Unity as we embrace women and children’s rights.

A)    On Children

The national social protection system has become seriously eroded leaving children extremely vulnerable to exploitation, violence and abuse, and with little access to justice and social welfare especially in Zion and Apostolic Churches as perpetrators are taking advantage of the flaws in areas of child protection.

Significant cases

Madzibaba Ishmael Mufani Budiriro case

The purpose of bringing these victims was not to parade the victims but to collectively find lasting solutions to stop such abuses and how best the victims can be helped and integrated in the mainstream society.

The highly publicized Budiriro incident where members of Zimbabwe Republic Police, journalists and leaders of ACCZ were physically attacked for no reason other than efforts to rescue victims of religious misinterpretation.

The first to give testimony was Simon Machaya who had gone up to grade three at the age of 12 and was no longer going because that was against the church doctrine. He was threatened that if ever he went to school he will die. He also showed a big wound on his left thigh that had gone for days without treatment as this was against the church dictates.

The other victim was a 16 year old Susan Machana who was forced to abandon school in 2012 while she was in form one. Madzibaba Ishmael gave such directives alleging that the victim would die upon continuing going to school as education was associated with Satanism. The victim’s father has been convicted of assault and is currently in custody. He challenged indigenous churches to distance themselves from such sentiments.

The victim said that if she was to be given a chance she would go back to school.

 She went on to narrate that girls of her age were given to some church members in marriage.

Key resolution

THE BISHOPS AGREED: Create a policy, legal and budget framework to ensure the protection of children against violence, exploitation and abuse and to ensure that all children can access social services in Apostolic and Zion Churches.

Proposed action

The action aims to:

• Increase the availability of birth registration services;
• Support the scaling up of the Victim Friendly Initiative, implementing a pre-trial diversion programme for children in conflict with the law;
• Advocate the rights and views of children and young people in the constitution;
• Support the prevention and monitoring of gender-based violence;
• Support the revival of the Government’s cash transfer scheme for the poorest households through the revised National Action Plan for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children, and develop ways to improve access to basic social services.

The cross-cutting programmes of communication for advocacy and development, gender and human rights, social policy, monitoring and evaluation and disaster reduction will support all the programme areas.

Women, young people and children will be supported to participate and advocacy will be based on evidence.

B)    On Women

About a quarter (26%) of women in Zimbabwe experienced some form of violence (psychological, emotional, economic, physical or sexual) perpetrated by an intimate partner in the period 2013-14. Thirteen percent of men in the country admit to perpetrating some form of violence against their intimate partners during the same period. Sixty-nine percent of women experienced while 41% of men admitted to perpetrating intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime.

Significant Case

Again the leaders took a swipe on the practises of Madzibaba Ishamael. It  was seen that women from some apostolic churches are still being treated as mere objects and they are not even aware of it. Fortunately there was a woman formerly from madzibaba Ishamael who gave the audience insight of what she went through as a mother of two. The presenter labeled her “Heroine” she chronicled how she joined the church while it was under the leadership of Madzibaba Nehemiah. After the demise of this leader Madzibaba Ishmael took over and eventually changed the doctrine.

The changes involved urging members not to use cell phones, not to send children to school and discouraging all members not to seek medical attention.

The women highlighted that the authority for these rowdy members of Ishmael’s church to assault people was an encouragement of this leader as he addresses his followers that there is no any power and voice they must heed  except of God, meaning that they are above everybody and the law. He is allegedly to have said that that the powers of all uniformed forces in Zimbabwe must be invalidated in favors of his followers.

This leader is addressed as god by his followers.

She appealed to ACCZ to be afforded an income generating project so that she can look after the family.

 The fourth person to address congregates was a woman who had been attending the Madzibaba Ishmael’s church together with her husband and children. All hell broke loose in February 2013 when Madzibaba Ishmael directed all parents who have school going children to stop henceforth.

This woman continued to send her children to school without the husband’s knowledge. Ironically the father is well educated and is a company director. He disposed televisions, cell phones and other electrical gargets. The husband then took the child to Mutare so that the child can attend school. This irked Ishmael who advised the husband to divorce his wife.

The husband then took the child to an unknown destination so that he cannot attend school. The woman first approached justice for children and then the civil court so that she can be granted custody of her child. The order was granted but the husband could not surrender the child to the wife. Several male followers of Ishmael could connive with the husband to verbally assault and threaten this woman.

After fruitless efforts to locate the child the husband was convicted of contempt of court but even though could not utter the whereabouts of the child. The mother tearfully appealed to the congregation to help in locating her child as she is no longer sure whether he was still alive. Women in the congregation could be seen with tears flowing.

Key resolution

THE  BISHOPS AGREED: Erect programmes that seek  to strengthen institutional mechanisms and socio cultural practices that promote and protect rights of women and girls and advance gender equality through advocating for policies that protect women's rights; supporting implementation of the Domestic Violence Act (DVA); Gender Based Violence (GBV) prevention and service provision for GBV survivors; and promoting GBV data collection.

Expected results

1. Supporting a coordinated multi-sectoral response to survivors of sexual violence:

The objective of this project is to increase access to life saving, multi-sectoral response services with an emphasis on health, psychosocial and legal support of adult and child survivors of GBV. Due to the current challenges the country is facing in provision of basic health, police and legal services, the focus of the project is to strengthen existing services to enable them to integrate victim friendly services. Key activities are training of multi-sectoral teams of nurses, churches under A.C. C. Z and social workers to enhance their understanding of survivor centered approaches, referral and coordination mechanisms, refurbishment of relevant assessment and counseling rooms at Churches and debriefing rooms at police stations in selected districts and development of standard operating procedures linking law enforcement and health services.

2. Support implementation of the dialogue based approach as a remedy to GBV. Child care unit will support implementation of a religious based platform for dialogue

- Training of Domestic Violence Counselors whose role includes advising, counseling and mediating the solution of any problems in personal relationships that are likely to lead or have led to domestic violence, providing counseling to complainants and respondents, and carry out at the order of the court investigations into the financial status of a complainant or respondent. 
- Continue community mobilization and awareness raising on GBV and the Domestic Violence Act through mass media campaigns. This will also include mobilizing men, traditional and religious leaders for social transformation on gender.

3. Strengthening GBV monitoring and evaluation. Child care unit will support the development of a national M&E framework to enable data collection in a standardize manner. Key steps include training of partners at provincial and district level on the M & E framework and data collection tools, piloting the tools in two districts and the results will be used to create a database which will be rolled out in all districts.

 4. Advocating for gender equality and women's empowerment. In partnership with Gender Theme Group members and civil society, Child care unit will continue advocacy efforts towards gender equality and women's empowerment.

ü    Participation of everyone regardless of sex in the fight against GBV.

ü    Creation of enabling environment that champions child, women and community development.

ü    A violent free community that embraces development

ü    Amplified  voice of women in the development process

ü    A religious foundation as a source of reference in pertinent issues of development

ü    An end to child marriage

ü    Eradication of forced marriage

ü    Eradicating early child pregnancies

On health

Children in the apostolic churches and Zion churches are somewhat excluded in child health programmes because of many factors .Paramount amongst these is the issue of contradiction of church doctrines and contemporary health problems. Parents in these churches are not aware of the importance of child health especially in the rural set ups. Children are the foundation of society hence their health needs are supposed to be addressed and prioritised , but this is not the case in most religious groups in rural setups. Child immunization and nutrition is a major issue which needs action in the form of parent training

Not only children are having challenges accessing health facilities by even the grown ups  too mainly women. This is in regard to HIV/AIDS. ACCZ has a peer educator program, which the Bishops are supporting and continue to support.

Key Resolutions

THE BISHOPS AGREED: Have a parent health training initiatives. Start by going on immunization awareness campaign.  Have health ambassadors in the churches. Train women on water and sanitation.

Expected results

v  Increased awareness of child health needs

v  An enabling environment that champions child development

v  A decrease in infant mortality rates

v  Eradication of harmful religious practises

v  Erosion of child malnutrition cases

v  Participation of religious groups , the community and by extension the nation in the campaign for a healthy and safe environment