TWO weeks ago, I sat around a crackling bonfire in what was meant to be a relaxed intergenerational exchange. On one side were young women, educated, assertive, alive to the language of rights and equality. Opposite them were older men, firm in their convictions, guardians of what they repeatedly called “our culture”.
The discussion turned to inheritance. What followed was heated disagreement. The older men argued the girl child does not deserve to inherit family property.
She will get married. Why should a father’s hard-earned land or property benefit a son-in-law? If she does not marry, one said dismissively, she can be allocated “a small corner” — enough to survive, not enough to claim ownership. The justifications was that “That’s what society says”. “It’s written in the Bible.” “That’s our tradition.”
Across the fire, I watched the faces of the young women fall. Their questions were not confrontational; they were wounded. Why don’t we matter? Why are we temporary in our own homes? Why are we treated as if we are passing through life, from our father’s household to our husband’s, without ever belonging fully to either?
If the world is evolving, why are we stuck here? It was painful to witness that realisation settling in, that despite education, constitutional promises and global conversations about equality, the cultural script is still stubbornly intact.
The girl child grows up in a precarious space. In her natal family, she is often treated as a visitor in waiting. Investment in her is conditional, tied to the assumption that she will eventually “belong” elsewhere.
At her husband’s home, she may labour, nurture and build, yet when serious family decisions are made, she is reminded, subtly or explicitly, that she is not blood. Her place is secured only as long as the marriage endures. Such thinking does not just deny inheritance. It denies belonging.
When inheritance is reserved for sons because daughters will marry, marriage itself becomes economic survival. A woman in an abusive union may endure in silence, knowing that returning home is not an option.
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The girl child has it hard, at home, at work and in the public sphere. She must outperform, overprove and overcompensate.
She must fight to break ceilings her male counterparts do not even see. Women who have risen to leadership carry harrowing stories of what it took to get there, the condescension, the gatekeeping and the silent endurance.
It is against this lived reality that the proposed constitutional amendment to merge the Zimbabwe Gender Commission with the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission demands serious scrutiny.
When the Gender Commission was established as an independent constitutional body, it was a milestone. In a country where women and girls have endured systemic violations, from property dispossession and child marriages to workplace discrimination and political marginalisation, a dedicated commission signalled recognition that gender inequality required specialised focus.
Gender injustice is not incidental. It is structural, cultural and embedded in everyday interactions, including those around bonfires.
To fold the Gender Commission into a broader human rights body risks diluting that focus. Proponents may frame it as administrative efficiency. But rights are not bureaucratic inconveniences to be streamlined. A standalone gender watchdog exists precisely because women’s issues have historically been sidelined or absorbed into broader agendas where they lose urgency.
One cannot ignore the uncomfortable reality that such decisions are often shaped in spaces where women remain underrepresented. The long, arduous battle to dismantle patriarchal norms has required institutional anchors within the Constitution. Weakening that architecture now sends the wrong signal, that gender equality can once again be treated as secondary.
The arguments I heard at that bonfire, that exclusion is justified by society, scripture or tradition, are the very beliefs a strong Gender Commission is meant to interrogate. Culture is not static. Tradition has evolved before and will evolve again. The Bible has been interpreted in many ways across centuries.
The young women were right to ask: if the world is changing, why must we still be imprisoned by selective readings of custom?
Why do parents work for their families if not for all their children, equally? Why build wealth if it is reserved for only half of them? Why raise daughters to excel in school, only to deny them ownership in adulthood?
Zimbabwe’s daughters are not temporary citizens. They are not transitional members of families.
Merging away a dedicated gender institution at a time when patriarchal attitudes are still deeply entrenched risks pushing women’s issues back to the periphery. The fight for the girl child is not sentimental activism; it is a constitutional imperative.
Around that fire, the pain of the young women was real. The constitution must not compound it.
