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Putting it right: Addressing human rights violations against Zimbabwean women
Research and Advocacy Unit
March 19, 2009

http://hub.witness.org/en/ReportVAWZimbabwe

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Introduction

The political parties in Zimbabwe signed a historic deal on the 15th September 2008 to put an end to the political and economic crisis that has been ongoing since 2000. In this deal, the parties agreed to put an end to politically motivated violence and bring all perpetrators to book, if only for the violence that took place between March and June 2008, and this implies that victims will have a right to a remedy that usually comprises three aspects; truth, justice, and reparations. The new government will have to determine the truth about the abuses, bring the perpetrators to justice, and award the victims reparations, be it in the form of compensation, rehabilitation, restitution, or all three. The Global Political Agreement [GPA] does not, however, have any provisions for a transitional justice process or any compensatory or reparative process for the victims of the violence. To be credible, any effective deal should not only end ongoing violations and hold to account those responsible for past abuses, but should also attempt to return the victims to the position they were in before the abuses.

The GPA was welcomed by women as it acknowledges the equality between men and women and recognizes women's role in nation building and the abuses they suffered in the process, and continue to suffer, but it must be noted that women's representation at the negotiations was minimal and the issues affecting women were primarily decided by men. What remains to be seen is how the clauses in the GPA will be implemented and what real impact it will have on women's lives. The GPA does not look at women as a specific group, but, under Articles 7(a) and
(d), combines them with the other generic groupings; race, age, gender and political affiliation. This suggests that the parties have not regarded women as a particularly vulnerable group in a time of crisis, which they obviously are; this has to be acknowledged in the implementation of the clauses in the GPA that relate to the position of women.

In all situations of conflict, merely by virtue of their gender identity, women are both primary and secondary victims; they suffer when they are themselves violated, and they also suffer when their family members are violated in that they have the responsibility of looking after the injured person or persons. This has not been any different in Zimbabwe. There is considerable anecdotal evidence of politically motivated violence against women, and organizations have been documenting the violence to support the anecdotal evidence.

In general, warring parties frequently target civilians and women are always primary amongst civilians in facing the consequences of the conflict. Women suffer as primary victims when sexual abuse is used as a weapon of war; they can be taken as sexual slaves to service the troops, as was seen during the liberation war in Zimbabwe where women cooked and provided sexual services to the guerilla army at their bases, and, in recent times, the militia camps to which women and young girls were abducted and abused. They are raped to dehumanize them and as a form of punishment for their male family members, as rape not only humiliates the person raped but also the whole family and their community. The specific sexual violence against women is in addition to other forms of violence that men suffer as well; torture, electric shocks and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Women also suffer as secondary victims because of their reproductive roles. Many women are frequently not economically independent; neither do they usually own resources such as land for sustaining their livelihoods. Therefore, when their male family members are injured or killed as a result of the conflict, they lose breadwinners, suffer the consequences of being displaced from their land, and they lose their status in the community. It is well documented that women suffer anxieties over their families and psychological/psychiatric disorders during and after the conflict, and often these are suffered silently. The fact that men and women experience life differently regardless of war or peace has to be taken into consideration especially after the conflict period when issues of redress are being brought up.

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