Bishop in Zambia Decries Subversion of “original intentions” of International Women’s Day

He advocated for the promotion of policies, customs and practices that contribute to the enhancement of the dignity and the uniqueness of a woman.

Bishop Chisanga recognized the role of traditional and faith-based leaders in getting things right, saying, “Traditional leaders have a huge voice, a powerful voice, and they can evaluate those practices and filter out those which do not respect the dignity of a woman.”

“Let us take that courage. It takes courage on the part of the traditional leader because they are cutting short a whole long history of a practice, but for the sake of our time and the dignity of a woman, it is necessary that we move out of those obsolete traditional practices,” he added.  

Church leaders, the Local Ordinary of Mansa Diocese since his Episcopal Consecration in February 2014 said, need to “preach the message of God that enhances the dignity of every human person created in the image and likeness of God.”

“In the Book of Genesis, chapter one, we read male and female God created them. So, then men and women are distinguished as male and female yet they are equal in dignity because they share the same nature of God, the image of God. That is the basic message we need to preach,” he emphasized. 

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Bishop Chisanga continued, “We are all created in the image and the likeness of God. So different but equal in dignity and the essence of being human.”

“No one can and should change this divine arrangement for whatever reasons. Different but equal in dignity; equal in being the essence of being; that's how God wanted it to be,” he said.

The Zambian Catholic Church leader faulted those who want women to be “like men”, saying, “It's the wrong question to ask, ‘How can women be more like men?’ Women do not need to be like men.”

Instead, he said, the preoccupation should with putting in place measures of how the woman can “be more the woman as God intended.”

“We have to be complementary human beings. There needs to be complementarity and mutual respect between men and women, within families, between husband and wife, female and male children, and other relatives. There must be mutual respect and there are the so-called gender roles,” he said in his message for the 2024 IWD marked under the theme, “Invest in women: Accelerate progress.”

The Zambian Catholic Bishop described the IWD 2024 theme as “very timely and very meaningful.”

“With deliberate policies to invest in education, health, and the general welfare of a woman, obviously starting with the girl child, our world would be a better place for everyone,” he said.

Bishop Chisanga went on to emphasize the need to foster the formal education of women, saying, “Indeed to educate a woman is to educate a whole nation.”

He called upon Zambians to take advantage of the free education in their country and help a girl “realize her potential, her abilities up to the highest levels of education in the higher instance of learning within and beyond our nation.”

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