http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/378/48557woman.jpgIn addition to the psychological trauma of sexual violence, Miriam Madziwa argues that the violence is likely to have an adverse effect on women's participation in politics into the future.
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There is haunting weariness in Precious Zhove's eyes as she recounts events leading to her fleeing her home in Mberengwa in Zimbabwe's southern region. Clutching at her 18-month-old baby, she relives the horror of the day war veterans, ZANU PF supporters, and soldiers descended on her homestead looking for her husband Joab Gumbo, who contested to be a councilor under a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) ticket.

"I was trying to tell them I did not know where my husband was since it was in the afternoon. They grabbed my baby, this one here and tied a sack around her waist then one of them started swinging her while holding her by the legs.”

"They said she was an MDC baby so they were going to take her away from me. They said that way me and my husband would have another baby, a Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) baby this time, because they don't like MDC people, and they are sell-outs."

While she pauses to catch her breath, she sighs, "Oh not again," and shifts the baby on her lap. The baby has no nappy, so her skirt has become wet. She explains the baby has no nappies or warm clothing. "I didn't have time to pack anything. The moment my husband returned home we left."

Zhove’s story is just one of many I have listened to in recent weeks as more and more families in rural Matabeleland and Midlands flee from harassment, intimidation, and beatings characterising the post March 29 period in Zimbabwe.

Media show images of injuries caused by the brutal attacks. The footage and reports are frightening. Burnt buttocks, breasts severed, limbs broken, and backs festering with wounds from plastic burns. Stories of pregnant women having their stomachs cut open or men young enough to be their grandsons raping elderly women.

Yet, away from the cameras, audio recorders, and notebooks there is emotional and psychological trauma that victims endure in stoic silence. Zhove is lucky to be out of physical harm's way. However, she is in continuous emotional turmoil. Her conscience gnaws at her heart over the fate of her two school-going children left behind in Mberengwa.

"I don't know what they are eating. I don't know whether they are going to school. I'm not even sure if they are still alive. I pray all the time that they are safe and that I will see them again soon.”

“I wonder sometimes whether I should have stayed with my children. If the war vets came back and killed me, at least my children would know my fate. Right now they don't even know I am here."

Broken bones heal with time if the victims are fortunate enough to access medical treatment. The verbal abuse and the psychological impact of the beatings, sexual abuse, and public humiliation will haunt these women forever. It reminds me of the ditty: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can hurt forever." The violence inflicts deep emotional wounds among victims, their relatives, and friends.

An added repercussion is the effect that the violence is likely to have on women's participation in politics. The post-election violence reinforces long held beliefs that "politics is a dirty and dangerous pursuit that only men can dabble in.” The violence gives politics a bad name and pushes women further onto the fringes of active politics.

The majority of women targeted are political activists who openly admit they are in politics to try to ensure a better future for their children. Women polling agents and candidates who contested in local council elections are key targets. Winning female councilors in rural areas are being hounded out of their homes and therefore, being denied the chance to work and help develop their communities.

Added to these politically active victims are hundreds of women who are killed, raped, harassed, humiliated and abused simply because they are mothers, wives, sisters and aunts of prominent MDC activists.

An elderly granny who had fled her home in Kezi tells of the shame she endured during a rally when “youthful war veterans” taunted her using abusive and vulgar language because her son is an MDC activist.

She confided that how unhappy she was to be living with her daughter in-law indefinitely. "I want to be home and not get in my daughter in-law's way. But I am too afraid to go back."

Mostly women carry the heavy responsibility of explaining the horrifying events to scared, confused and traumatised children. They also try to ensure life goes on as usual for the children amid all the upheaval and uncertainty.

Mothers have to answer questions of "Baba varipi? Ubaba ungaphi? (Where is daddy?)" from children whose fathers have fled their homes in the dead of night. These women have the daunting task of trying to make senseless reprisals make sense to their children.

Women are the people who have to make sure that even after houses and granaries are razed to the ground, children are clothed and fed. Moreover, these same women live with the unspoken scorn of close relatives for “allowing” themselves to be raped by war veterans.

Yet in communities where war veterans have set up the infamous “bases” everyone knows that women have no option but to “agree” to rape in desperate attempts to protect their families.

The true extent of humiliation that violated women are enduring became clear when a man from the Midlands narrated the extent of sexual abuse in his wife's presence.

"Every woman who is still young is being raped by these brutes who threaten to destroy homesteads if women do not give in to their demands. We men, know it's happening even though women don't talk about it. We know they are desperate to spare their husbands and families victimisation. We are going to be raising children that are not ours, but AIDS is the real threat in the community now."

While the man spoke, his wife was shaking her head silently, tears streaming down her cheeks. The effect of all these experiences is to traumatise Zimbabwean women into silence, and out of the political arena.

Ultimately, to quote writer Chenjerai Hove in Shebeen Tales, there is the long term danger that if the violence, harassment and abuse continues unabated, "women will remain of politics and not in politics." And that will do liitle to make sure their needs are cared for in the future.

*Miriam Madziwa is a freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Miriam Madziwa writes that each time the Zimbabwe dollar tumbles, women's survival chances take a corresponding knock, as it means more sexual favours to seal deals with men, who by virtue of their jobs or connections are able to make or break women's survival attempts

With her unkempt hair tucked into a woolen hat, a faded T-shirt, skirt and a pair of torn canvas shoes, Nokhuthula Tshuma* does not fit the stereotypical profile of a commercial sex worker. As an informal trader earning a living selling agricultural produce from rural areas to urban residents, it is difficult to link her to sex work and its inherent dangers.

Yet, the mother of three, like thousands of impoverished Zimbabwean women struggling to feed, clothe and educate their children in a hyperinflationary environment, is at great risk of infection. Each time they embark on a business trip, the women expose themselves to vulnerable situations.

As the Zimbabwean economy crumbles, shortages of basic goods have presented numerous opportunities for enterprising women to make money. The same shortages of goods and essential services such as transport coupled with endemic corruption mean the women traders have to operate according to business rules defined by men.

One such rule is to offer a “favour,” really a bribe, to secure scarce commodities and free passage by police officers. For these impoverished and desperate women, the bribes take the form of offering "a little bit extra" to male service providers and suppliers in order to remain in business. These extra favours are invariably sexual.

For the cash-strapped women, sex offers an easy and cheap, albeit risky, means of supporting their families. In return, they are able to secure scarce goods as well as discounts on transport and accommodation and their businesses flourish.

A few experiences gleaned from a cross section of informal Zimbabwean women traders illustrate the magnitude of the dilemma these women contend with in trying to meet economic needs and safeguarding their health.

Tshuma lives in the southern half of Zimbabwe in the coal-mining town of Hwange. Twice a month, she makes a 400 kilometer round trip to Lusulu in Binga district. Lusulu is a thriving agricultural area where Tshuma barters basic goods such as soap, sugar and salt, which have disappeared from shop shelves, with maize. Normally she is away from home for a week.

If she were to pay for all her transport, food and accommodation expenses when she is away from home, she would make very little profit. So to boost her profit margins, she pays using what is known as "bottom currency," to pay off bus crews to secure seats on overcrowded buses, truck drivers to ferry bags of maize back to Hwange, and lodge owners to discount her accommodation costs.

Beauty Phiri started selling dried fish six months ago soon after government's clampdown on prices saw butchers' refrigerators going empty. An astute entrepreneur, Phiri saw a viable business opportunity selling dried fish to protein-starved Bulawayo residents. She sources her fish fresh from the Zambezi River in Binga from both Zimbabwean and Zambian fishermen.

She points out that it did not take her long to figure out that she had to sleep with the fishermen for her to get in order to meet her requirements quickly. Women fishmongers openly admit that fishermen prefer to deal with "generous women."

On the extreme end of the age scale are poor girl pupils in remote rural schools, such as Lusulu High School. Pupils walk an average of 20 kilometers to get to school from their homes, so many become “bush borders.” Bush boarding is an informal set-up where pupils build their own huts and have to find their own food and other basic requirements.

Many pupils come from poor families who are unable to send regular supplies of cash and food to the borders. In desperation, female students resort to illicit affairs with teachers, police officers and other rich villagers. Statistics from Lusulu indicate that annually, an average of 50 female students drop out of school after falling pregnant.

Thanks to HIV and AIDS awareness campaigns, most women who find themselves in such situations are aware of the inherent dangers of their survival tactics. The women know that HIV and AIDS have reduced the life expectancy of women in the country to 34 years, and that the pandemic is decimating families and drastically reducing mortality rates.

The sad reality though, is that the poverty forces these women to engage in risky behaviour in order to survive anyways. Some women still are not making the connection between granting sexual favours and the increased risk of infection.

Another worrying fact is that when women travel a lot, their partners are likely to turn to mistresses called “small houses” in Zimbabwe, during their absence. These "small house" occupants in turn often have numerous partners in an attempt to balance their ever-increasing monthly expenses with their incomes.

These bleak scenarios aptly portray how Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, characterised by hyperinflation now at almost 15 000 percent, is fuelling the vulnerability of women to HIV infection and erasing the gains of concerted HIV and AIDS awareness and behaviour change campaigns. The black market, a phenomenon triggered by acute shortages of basic goods and services, is forcing desperate women to forget lessons learnt from these campaigns.

The instinct to meet basic needs has erased survival skills painstakingly acquired over the years. Each time the Zimbabwe dollar tumbles, women's survival chances take a corresponding knock, as it means more sexual favours to seal deals with men, who by virtue of their jobs or connections are able to make or break women's survival attempts.
Even more disheartening is the realisation that efforts to break the vicious circle will come to nought until the economic free fall stops.

* Not her really name

* Miriam Madziwa is a freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe

* This article is part of a series produced by the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service for the Sixteen Days of Activism on Gender Violence

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Love. That’s the key ingredient of a Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) strategy to unseat the Mugabe regime. Miriam Madziwa reports.

Women in Zimbabwe are taking to the streets to show their frustration with poor governance, lack of basic social services, and unprecedented increases in the cost of education. In the process, police have arrested nearly 1000 women members of the pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), for their attempts to hold their leaders accountable.

This past October, WOZA members scored three legal victories after the State failed to substantiate its charges against the some of the women arrested while demonstrating, prompting the magistrates to set the women free.

Others have not been as successful. Some women spend months detained in filthy police cells, sometimes with babies on their backs, attending continually postponed hearings while the prosecution teams try to find charges that will stick. Some have gone into labour while in police detention.

Jane Mlambo* is from a low-income suburb in Bulawayo. At 62 years of age, the widow explains how jam has become a luxury, and she cannot even afford to buy bread on which to serve the spread. Her grandchildren are no longer attending class because of prohibitive school fees and costly uniforms demanded before admission.

Thinking about the past and a brighter future for their grandchildren has stirred up strong discontent not just in Mlambo but also in hundreds of other Zimbabwean women who have joined WOZA.

WOZA's mission is to restore the dignity of the country's women by speaking out against social and economic injustices that have eroded the wellbeing of the majority of the country's citizens. Guided by their motto 'The power of love can overcome the love of power' the women peacefully show their displeasure.

WOZA is now known for it's non-violent but highly imaginative demonstrations during which they persistently call for 'tough love' among the country's leaders to resolve the crisis that has made not just women's lives, but all Zimbabweans' lives unbearable.

A major plus for the organisation is that the protests always catch State security agents napping because WOZA does not publicise actions beforehand. By the time security agents catch on, the women have already had their say.

With its street action and frequent visit to 'the garden' (WOZA lingo for police cells), the organisation is slowly chalking up victories against a repressive government.

While in the garden, the women seize the opportunity to share some sisterly love through song and dance. The songs also send a message to the arresting officers to realise that they too are victims of the socio-political environment.

Additionally, the women highlight the fact that Zimbabwe's situation is untenable but things are bound to change if they continue speaking out. So effective has this strategy been that police officers who have heard the women's "tough love songs" now refuse to arrest lead singers within the organisation.

WOZA members say through their homemade, hand written placards and leaflet they are communicating with a government that has cut off communication links with its people.

Listening and watching WOZA members plan and stage their projects, one get the sense that here are women determined to have their voices and opinions heard. Here are women who invest their time and meager material resources to stage protracted protests for their dream of a "socially just future."

These women put passion and conviction into their street actions. These women are serious.

The women's commitment is evident through their style of doing things. Members receive intensive training programmes to maintain the organisation's philosophy of non-violence and to always show love. Now even brutal baton-welding police officers have conceded in court that when they go to break-up WOZA demonstrations, "the women are very co-operative and sit down and allow themselves to be arrested."

The spirit of sisterhood ensures packed courtrooms when WOZA activists appear in court. Members who escape the police dragnet after protests go and offer themselves for arrest so that they can be together with their sisters.

With such an impressive record of accomplishment, maybe it is about time disgruntled Zimbabweans start taking WOZA seriously. Currently debate in opposition political circles and civic society is revolving around the need to a 'united and brave leader to direct a popular revolt."

Maybe it's time to draw helpful lessons from WOZA's experiences. Essentially, it is not about how strong the leadership is but how involved, committed and prepared members are in identifying a cause and planning how they will achieve their stated objectives.
It's about unshakeable belief in what you are doing and love for a brighter tomorrow. Just as the old adage notes, "it's love that makes the world go round.” WOZA is using love to unsettle an oppressive regime.

* Not her real name.

* Miriam Madziwa is a freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Indeed the white space got to me. Here I was anxiously logging in at an Internet Cafe to get my weekly instalment of Pambazuka News. It was there in the inbox! I read the letter and then came to the white space. It made me realise that even though I cannot at the moment contribute financially, the least I can do is say "Thank you". So, I am saying thank-you, ndatenda, siyabonga to the Pambazuka team for the weekly updates. They say you don't know what you have until its gone! At least next week Pambazuka will be back. Thank you once again and God bless.