Time for women to take a stand for each other

IT is the month of March and it has come to be known as the Women`s month. The whole of the month the focus is on women, what they are doing and what can be done to improve their way of life.

Being a woman is a lot. I guess being a man is a lot too, but I do not have the first-hand experience! I have seen some men at the receiving hand of bad treatment from women!

I am not going to label anyone and any behaviour I will just share what I have seen happen and leave you to draw your own but informed conclusions! I am not going to start stepping on landmines that may blow up in my face. I just want to be able to trigger discussions that I believe in the long term actually benefit women, although I may appear to be against women. Am I beginning to confuse you? Do not worry, clarity is on its way!

There is always a call for society to support women in their endeavours because of the disparities and different opportunities that are presented to males and females. I have just been thinking that as women it is within our powers to significantly contribute to the change that we want. It is not something that will happen overnight but requires a lot of commitment and hard work. The commitment and hard work should come from the women.

Why do I say women? Women are great influencers. It is only that sadly in some instances they use their influence in a bad way. When there is alleged infertility within the home, which family members are most likely to be the most vocal in seeking ways to rectify the issue and do that rapidly? Women. Who are the first to notice that someone could be pregnant? Women. Which family members have the most time with the children? Women. Who in the family decides what should be eaten or not eaten within the family institution. Women.

I know of someone who grew up in a home where sugar beans was never part of the diet. It was because her mother said that beans had affected her during adolescence and for that the whole family had to pay the price. In adulthood she developed an `acquired` taste for beans. Strange is it not. In other families, offals were not a delicacy simply because the mother could not stomach them.

Growing up we ate a lot of mazondo at our house. There would be put on a fire outside and people would be assigned to make sure that the fire was blazing away while the mazondo boiled. When done the pots would be changed, pouring the mazondo into a clean pot for the stove. While the vegetables and sadza were being prepared , the one “on duty” would be busy scrubbing to make the sooty pot clean once again. You can imagine my surprise in adulthood when one female told me that mazondo were not for women when I had put my plate on the serving table as mazondo were being dished. In childhood one woman allowed me to eat as much mazondo as I could, now as an adult I was being told mazondo were a delicacy for men! Really,

I thought to myself, if there was something that left male traits in women from mazondo, the way I had eaten mazondo since childhood, I was good as a female male!

This women`s month and beyond, it is time to let go of women bringing fellow women down. Better than that it is important to start with the males in our lives that we can influence, and influence them in a good way. The sons within our homes, our brothers, our cousins, nephews, uncles and even fathers. When a couple is trying for a child and they are not getting pregnant we as women will not add to the stress that the couple already has by `being so sure` that it is the woman who is married to our relative who cannot conceive. We will not turn ourselves into investigators who do nothing but bring confusion and conflict.

Neither will we encourage our male relatives to do geographical family planning (having children in different places) when we think that our `acquired` female relative has not had as many children as we deem are necessary to keep the family name going. We shall not intimidate other fellow women when we visit, turning our visits into stressors. We shall in this month and beyond, applaud every male who is doing his best to improve the life of a fellow woman. In this regard we shall stop labelling any male that we see helping his woman folk be it with laundry, cooking or any household chores. We shall not offer to help the male get rid of the love potion that has affected his brain!

As women who are committed to progress, we shall not gossip using our gift of speech in a bad way. Rather we shall talk and encourage women to set themselves up in business and excel. When they excel, we shall not attribute their success, to sleeping their way to success. We shall be our sister`s keeper. We shall not blow things out of proportion when a young woman or even a mature one stains her dress due to a menstrual flow.

We shall not attribute the staining to being careless and having a mother who did not give proper guidance. Acknowledging that we have different opportunities, we shall push for equity rather than equality. We shall put up platforms from which `shorter` women in terms of opportunities can be at the same height as others!

We shall be bridges for each other. We shall be empowering women and ride on the wave of being good women for other women! # Invest in Women – Accelerate Progress!

emphasizing the hope and redemption offered through faith in Jesus Christ.

Why Do Christians Celebrate Easter?

The significance of Easter is Jesus Christ’s triumph over death. His resurrection means the eternal life that is granted to all who believe in Him. The purpose of Easter also means the full confirmation of all that Jesus taught and preached during His three-year ministry. If He had not risen from the dead or simply died and not been resurrected, He would have been thought of as just another teacher or prophet. However, His resurrection rebuked all that and provided final and undeniable proof that He was the Son of God and that He had overcome death once and for all.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the core of the Christian gospel. Saint Paul says that if Christ is not raised from the dead, then our preaching and hope are in vain (1 Cor. 15:14). Certainly, without the resurrection, there would be no Christian preaching or faith.

The apostles of Christ would have continued as the disheartened group, which the Gospel of John depicts as being in hiding for fear of the Jews. They were in total despair until they met the risen Christ (John 20:19). Then they touched Christ’s wounds of the nails and the spear; they ate and drank with Him. The resurrection became the foundation of everything they said and did (Acts 2-4): “...for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39).

The resurrection affirms Jesus of Nazareth as the prophesied Messiah of Israel and the King and Lord of a new Jerusalem: a new heaven and a new earth. - Christianity.com

AFRICAN identity verification start-up Smile ID has released its yearly report based on identity checks conducted on the continent throughout 2023.

Since the company was founded in 2017, it has done over 100 million checks in Africa. It used the data from these checks to draw insights into fraudulent verification attempts on the continent.

One such insight is that fraudsters use national IDs for identity fraud more than passports, driving licences, and other means of identification, representing 80% of total fraud attempts using document-based verification.

The report noted that the reason for this is that the national ID is the most popular form of government identification in most African countries. Meaning they are the most likely to get lost or stolen, making it possible for fraudsters to use them.

Interestingly, Smile ID’s 2024 Digital Identity Fraud in Africa Report ranked countries with national IDs that have been used for the most fraud attempts and Nigeria ranked ninth with a fraud attempt rate of 18 percent.

Topping the list with the most fraud attempts is South Africa’s national ID at 38 percent. Tanzania came in second at 32 percent, Kenya at 26 percent, and Uganda was fourth at 25 percent.

Which countries had the highest fraud rates in Africa in 2023?

Of the four regions — East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa — compared in the report, Central and East Africa saw the highest rate of identity fraud in 2023. Both regions reached a peak of 29 percent and 30 percent respectively.

Southern Africa reached a peak of 23 percent while West Africa had the lowest fraud rate, peaking at 20 percent.

A deeper analysis of fraud trends in the continent revealed that fraudulent activities increased around 6pm and peaked at 9pm. Fraudsters were also known to be more active on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Which industry had the most fraudulent verification attempts?

While there wasn’t a significant difference in identity fraud rates among industries in 2023, the financial industry saw fraud rates peak in October. Interestingly, the financial industry also saw the highest fraud rates in 2022, with the buy now pay later (BNPL) sector seeing the highest rate of biometric fraud.

However, payment platforms took the top spot for the most fraud attempts in 2023, reaching a peak of 43 percent in January, while savings and investment platforms had the second-highest rate at 24 percent in October.

BNPL platforms which held first place in 2022 only saw fraud rates peak at 18 percent in April 2023. According to this article, there was an explosion in usage and investment in BNPL start-ups in 2022. The sector which barely saw any funding a couple of years ago, had start - ups like Kenya’s Lipa Later raising US$12 million pre-Series A and Nigeria’s Klump raising a US$780 000 pre-seed in 2022.

Eric Muli, CEO of Lipa Later, attributed the explosion of the usage of BNPL platforms to low credit accessibility in Africa. BNPL made it easy for ordinary Africans who weren’t part of the privileged few to access credit quickly and easily.

While this ease could have spurred an explosion in usage of BNPL platforms, and subsequently led to an increase in fraud rates, there’s no clear reason why fraud rates on payment start - ups have gone up.

However, we saw payment start-ups like Flutterwave suffer a US$$2,9 billion hack, with Interswitch losing US$30 billion to chargeback fraud.

Preventing identity fraud in Africa

Smile ID’s report focused on biometric and document verifications, and found that businesses that “rely on textual verification are 4 times more likely to be breached by fraudulent actors than their counterparts that rely on biometric authentication.”

A combination of both forms of verification makes it harder for fraudsters to game the system because “an ideal identity verification system should be capable of verifying that the ID presented is an original copy issued by the appropriate agency and authenticating that the person presenting the document is the owner.”

However, the age of generative artificial intelligence could help fraudsters pass biometric checks. However, Smile ID notes that AI models will be created to spot anomalies in synthetic media. – techpoint.Africa