Jean Kapata (born 25 December 1960) is a
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...
n politician and former
Minister of Lands and Natural Resources.
Career
Kapata worked as a theatre nurse before being elected to represent the
Mandevu constituency at the
2006 election for the
Patriotic Front. She was re-elected in 2011 and 2016.
Kapata served as Deputy Minister of Community Development, Mother & Child Health. On 2 October 2009, she was arrested with nine other Patriotic Front MPs after they protested the acquittal of former president
Frederick Chiluba
Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba (30 April 1943 – 18 June 2011) was a Zambian politician who was the second president of Zambia from 1991 to 2002. Chiluba, a trade union leader, won the country's multi-party presidential election in 1991 as t ...
with car honks and whistles. They were released on 7 October.
In 2014, Kapata was appointed by President
Michael Sata
Michael Charles Chilufya Sata (6 July 1937 – 28 October 2014) was a Zambian politician who was the fifth president of Zambia, from 23 September 2011 until his death on 28 October 2014. A social democrat, he led the Patriotic Front (PF), a maj ...
as
Minister for Tourism and Arts. Under her tenure, the ban on
big-game hunting
Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for meat, commercially valuable by-products (such as horns/antlers, furs, tusks, bones, body fat/ oil, or special organs and contents), trophy/taxidermy, or simply just for recreation ...
cats in Zambia was lifted. In response to the international media attention surrounding the
killing of Cecil the lion
Cecil ( 2002 – 2 July 2015) was a male African lion who lived primarily in the Hwange National Park in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe. He was being studied and tracked by a research team of the University of Oxford as part of a long-term stud ...
in neighbouring
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...
, Kapata said, "the West seemed more concerned with the welfare of a lion in Zimbabwe than of Africans themselves."
Kapata was a member of the Zambia delegation to the United Nations 60th Session of the
Commission on the Status of Women
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW or UNCSW) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), one of the main UN organs within the United Nations. CSW has been described as the UN organ promoting gend ...
in March 2016. In the lead up to the
August 2016 election Kapata received
death threats
A death threat is a threat, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or group of people. These threats are often designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behaviour, in which case a deat ...
and her driver was attacked by armed men demanding to know where she was. The
MMD candidate for her constituency, Mary Phiri, accused Kapata of sending people to attack her campaign team.
[ On 27 September 2016, she became Minister for Lands, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection. She is also the Patriotic Front's Chairperson for Elections.
]
Personal life
Kapata is married and is a mother and grandmother.
References
External links
National Assembly of Zambia profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kapata, Jean
Living people
1960 births
Patriotic Front (Zambia) politicians
Women government ministers of Zambia
Zambian nurses
21st-century Zambian women politicians
21st-century Zambian politicians
Members of the National Assembly of Zambia
Tourism ministers of Zambia
Lands and Natural Resources ministers of Zambia
Environment ministers of Zambia