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Lovemore Dube, [email protected]

THE Africa Sports Union Council (AUSC Region Five), which represents member states in sports in the Sadc region, has made great strides in having more women in sport. The council envisages a target of 500 000 women to be active by 2028 and is encouraging each female to recruit four women.

Stanley Mutoya the head of AUSC (Region 5) told Zimpapers Sports Hub that as a region they were not yet at a level that satisfies the Sadc 2008 Protocol, which encourages 50-50 representation in all facets of life in the region. Mutoya said strides have been made in the increase of women’s participation in sports.

“We have a gender policy, more on the equity end where we are saying formerly marginalised groups like women and those with disabilities have to be supported; they have to be capacitated. For instance, in the Regional Games we say if the Chef de Mission is a male, then a woman must be the general manager,” said Mutoya.

He said they were making strides in the advancement and implementation of the Sadc Protocol.“We are making strides, we are not there yet,” Mutoya said. He said there was a baseline study in 2013 that indicated that women constitute 15 percent of those active in sport in the Sadc Region.

“We carried a baseline survey in 2013, and we had figures of 15 percent. We made a follow-up in 2022 led by Stellenbosch University and we discovered there was a marginal improvement of two percent to 17 percent from 15,” said Mutoya.
He said five sporting disciplines were looked at with netball left out as it would give a skewed position.

Mutoya said the Region could have better figures but because of forces behind the low uptake such as culture and religion, the figures have stayed where they are.“We can do better, there are other forces behind this, like social barriers which can be Religious or traditional and other things like funding and capacity,” said Mutoya.

He disclosed that they had since come up with a women in leadership programme in the region where every year in each country 200 women are trained. This he said this translates to over 2 000 women a year between the ages of 18-35. He added that while there is the urge to have women reaching the 50-50 barrier with men, it is important that they create women of substance.

“While we are still making a 50-50 parity, we want to create women of substance not for benevolence, women who are able and competent,” said Mutoya. He emphasised that for the games they are happy with a 50-50 balance and a worst-case scenario of an overlay of 20 percent that is 60-40 either way.