Africa

Zambia will hold its first ‘feminist festival’ on Saturday

Event organiser, the Sistah Sistah Foundation, says it aims to create an alternative to marches or conferences

The festival will run from 12pm-9pm. It is taking place in a mall in the capital city of Lusaka, where entry will be free. Photograph: iStock

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Sally Hayden
Fri Sep 9 2022 - 15:38

Zambia will hold its first “feminist festival” on Saturday, with 1,000 attendees expected to watch musicians, dance and celebrate.

Ann Holland, the 28-year-old co-founder and co-director of grassroots feminist organisation the Sistah Sistah Foundation, which is organising the festival, said they wanted to create an alternative to marches or conferences.

“Marches are really fun, and they’re great and impactful and powerful. [But] sometimes it can be very tiring when all you’re doing is marching. So what we wanted this year was that instead of doing a march we do a festival,” she said.

The festival will run from 12pm-9pm. It is taking place in a mall in the capital city of Lusaka, where entry will be free.

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Holland said most attendees will be 16-28 years old. Marie Stopes will be present to distribute contraceptives and answer questions from attendees, while organisations that help victims of sexual and gender-based violence will also be ready to speak to victims privately.

“But 80 per cent is mostly like us having fun: drinking, dancing and just doing the things that feminists rarely get to do because we’re always fighting for things,” Holland said.

The Sistah Sistah Foundation provides mentoring for young Zambians, giving guidance and advice.

Zambia, in southern Africa, has a population of about 19 million people. Abortion has been legal under various conditions since 1972, but provision is seriously limited. Only 4 per cent of Zambians even know it is legal, Holland said, and there is still a lot of stigma around it, so the Sistah Sistah Foundation focuses “on providing information and safe spaces where women can go and have abortions”.

The organisation is run by young Zambian feminists, all of whom are under 30. They also give guidance on accessing contraceptives, provide free sanitary pads as part of a campaign to end period poverty and help victims of sexual assault make reports to the police or connect with lawyers. Currently, fewer than 7 per cent of reported rape cases make it to court and they can take years to be resolved, according to Holland.

Just 15 per cent of elected parliamentarians in Zambia are women, with Holland saying they “don’t necessarily align with feminist values”. She wants there to be a push to tackle the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence in Zambia, change attitudes and provide more funding for organisations that support women.

Holland is also a part-time adviser with Frida, which gives grants to feminist-run organisations across the world.

Being a feminist in Zambia can be considered very radical. People say, “Oh, you hate men,” Holland said. “It’s an extremely patriarchal country and extremely Christian, and anything that doesn’t align with patriarchal values is automatically seen as a red flag … We’re just asking for basic rights. There’s nothing radical about that.”

Other “feminist festivals” have been organised across the world, Holland said, but they are normally conferences held in hotels. “It’s great and it’s perfect that we have those spaces, but sometimes feminists just need to dance and have fun.”

The festival’s advertisements say there will be food and drink stores, tattoos and piercings available, speed dating (“it’s just a fun activity for a few minutes”) and “feminist dancing” (which, Holland said, basically means women can dance however they want, without harassment).

“I wish we could have more of these spaces as feminists. I know it’s serious that we have to fight for rights but part of fighting for rights is fighting for the need to just be happy and enjoy ourselves. … So sometimes it’s just little things like creating our own safe spaces, and the world catches up.”