I read with mounting horror the atrocities that my fellow women have gone through and continue to endure. We have different wars but the same casualties [Pambazuka News 351: International Women's Day: African women speak out].

In Zambia, the war we are waging is against HIV/AIDS. Not only has it disproportionately affected women but women are the prime victims. Women are care givers and breadwinners. However, their access to education, health care and a means for survival, is usually determined by men. Furthermore, the most vulnerable "little women" the girl child, is is not even safe in her own home, as defilement cases have risen to an alarming all time high. Usually perpetrated by fathers, uncles and close relatives. So I think its time. Time for women to wage a war. We can be combatants too. We must fight this injustice, and resist being made passive spectators as the drama of our lives unfolds.Through

Pambazuka, can we consolidate a plan of action? John Donne Meditation 17 Devotions upon Emergent Occasions "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any woman's death diminishes me, because I am involved in womankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."