Educated women in Swaziland: A female lawyer for human rights (middle) hands awards to outstanding students at a school's prize day. Even they are still told what to wear despite their education.
Swaziland, like other nations, is stepping up immigration security measures to ensure that the illegal acquisition of authentic or counterfeit travel documents and passports is either minimized or put to a total stop. We have, as a result, been instructed to present travel documents and diplomatic passports (for those privileged few who carry them) to immigration outlets in order to secure them against fraudulent acquisition.
According to weekend newspaper reports, women whose children were born of marriage to non-Swazi males have had their children’s travel documents invalidated because “they are not Swazi”. The unfortunate women, obviously outraged by what they view as unfair treatment of themselves and their offspring, did not realize that the constitution that came into operation in January, 2006, discriminates against them and their children who were born in Swaziland.
Chapter IV, section 43(1) reads: “A person born in Swaziland after the commencement of this constitution is a citizen of Swaziland by birth if at the time of their birth the father of that person was a citizen of Swaziland in terms of this constitution.” Section 43(4) reads: “Where a child born outside of marriage is not adopted by its father or claimed by that father in accordance with Swazi law and custom and the mother of that child is a citizen of Swaziland, the child shall be a citizen of Swaziland by birth.”
The women’s perfectly justified outrage is of course unjustified in terms of the constitution. It is the constitution that discriminates against them simply on the basis of their sex in a society that remains deeply mired in patriarchy. The women and all of us should be asking instead why a child born to a Swazi mother in Swaziland should not become an automatic citizen by birth as is the case with the children of Swazi males. We should be asking why it becomes necessary for a Swazi woman to remain unmarried for their children fathered by non-Swazis to become automatic citizens while the same condition does not apply to Swazi males.
Surely the desirability of this constitution was, among other things, to address human rights disparities, including the rights of disadvantaged groups such as women, children, and the disabled. How can a constitution whose authors are quick to impress on any outsider who still cares to listen that the royal-authored document is people-driven entrench disparities between male and female citizens like this? When the unconstitutionally appointed Prime Minister, Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini, recently monologued that, among other things, his administration would review the constitution; did he have discriminatory sections like the ones I just cited in mind? I doubt it very much. If his abysmal rule of law record is anything to go by, then we should brace ourselves for even fewer rights, if any. As for women, who are still told what and how to wear in royal residences, the law courts, parliament, prisons, as well as where to kneel in order to address public gatherings, they should be lucky if a future constitution, if any, even mentions the word women at all. Have Swazis forgotten that a clause that guaranteed cultural parity for men and women was snappily removed by a special traditionalist-dominated royal committee constituted to vet the (national) document just before the king signed this constitution into law way back in 2005? The committee, headed by the incumbent Ludzidzini (traditional headquarters) Governor, Jim Gama, and unilaterally handpicked by Mswati as we have become accustomed to, argued that the clause was unworkable in terms of a Swazi Law and Custom (SLC) whose codified version is yet to become public knowledge, if ever. For those who may not yet know, this SLC document (wherever it is in whatever shape) is the actual supreme law of Swaziland if one considers the obvious imbalance of power between it and the constitution.
I am an optimist; but by no means a blind (figurative) one. So, unlike senior citizen Musa Hlophe of the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organizations (SCCCO) who wishfully believes that some of Sibusiso’s latest pronouncements on the way forward for Swaziland are in and of themselves praiseworthy (Times of Swaziland Sunday, 05/04/09); I do not even need to wait for the man’s actions to confirm my cynicism and dash Hlophe’s wishes. I trust my instincts on this one. Sibusiso is a trusted Mr no-change and that is precisely what his royal masters dusted him off and unleashed him back on us to do. And so far the writing is simply on the wall. Unwary optimists like Hlophe need to answer the question why Sibusiso’s moot programme of action would even mention the word “dialogue” while his God-forsaken government keeps PUDEMO President, comrade Mario Masuku, in prison for, among other things, proposing “talks” about a future Swaziland…
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