NCJ Number
219148
Date Published
2006
Length
37 pages
Annotation
This chapter illustrates complexities in defining human rights within a specific postcolonial country's evolution, using the issue of gender and justice in South Africa and Zimbabwe today, with attention to sexual hierarchies and gender relations.
Abstract
The chapter focuses on the three legal constructions that regulate relationships of sexuality and gender and that frame their contested definitions in these countries. The first legal construction is the creation and current treatment of African customary law. The second construction is the discourse of rights within colonial and postcolonial contexts; and the third legal construction is the efficacy and credibility of the judiciary and constitution. The political debates associated with these three elements are shown to reflect competing visions of justice in a postcolonial world that remains unjust and unequal. Focusing on this interaction of historical legacy and contemporary politics highlights the fact that gender and sexuality as issues central to claims of cultural status and equal rights are key features in contested definitions of postcolonial justice in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The constitutions of the two countries engage very differently with the extremes of "radical individualism" and "primal sovereignty," so they establish very different platforms from which to develop and support women's agency. The South African Constitution clearly resolves the tension between rights and cultural status through the concept of "living" custom. In contrast, the Zimbabwean situation shows the extent to which a constitution that has neither symbolic strength nor the practical advantage of an unambiguous dedication to human rights cannot resist the political maneuvers of a determined opportunist, serving to exacerbate inequities of sex and gender. 72 notes and 52 references