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Celebrities
back tampon rebels of Zimbabwe
Christina
Lamb, Sunday Times (UK)
May 07, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2168451,00.html
SHE has been arrested
22 times, tortured so badly that her front teeth were knocked into her
nose and had an AK-47 thrust up her vagina until she bled. Thabitha Khumalo’s
crime: to campaign against a critical shortage of tampons and sanitary
towels in Zimbabwe, one of the least talked about and most severe side-effects
for women of the country’s economic crisis.
Now her cause has
been taken up in Britain by celebrities including the actors Anna Chancellor,
Gillian Anderson, Prunella Scales and Jeremy Irons.
Later this month
they will launch “Dignity. Period!”, a fundraising campaign
to buy sanitary products for Zimbabwe’s women. It will start with
a night of entertainment at the 20th Century theatre in Notting Hill,
west London, hosted by Stephen Fry.
So desperate is the
situation that women are being forced to use rolled-up pieces of newspaper.
Zimbabwe already has the world’s lowest life expectancy for women
— 34 — and Khumalo believes these unhygienic practices could
make it drop to as low as 20 because infections will make them more vulnerable
to HIV. “It’s a time bomb,” she said. The shortage is forcing
schoolgirls to stay at home when they start menstruating.
The crisis began in
1999 when Johnson & Johnson, the healthcare manufacturer, pulled out
of the country because of the worsening economic situation. Zimbabwe then
had to import products from neighbouring South Africa. But the collapse
of the currency and the world’s highest inflation, now more than
1,000%, have made the products unaffordable to all but the elite.
In a country where
the minimum wage is Z$6m (£17.14) a month, the cost of a box of
20 tampons is Z$3m. “Who in their right mind is going to spend half
their earnings on tampons?” asked Khumalo. “As it is most people
can only afford to eat once a day. Women are being forced to choose between
their own health and the survival of their family.”
Khumalo, 45, general
secretary of the Women’s Advisory Council of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions, and a mother of two, started her campaign
after she saw a woman walking awkwardly on the street: “She told
me she was going home from work because she had her period and could no
longer afford sanitary protection or cotton wool.”
When an MP raised
the issue in parliament, government ministers fell about laughing and
dismissed the matter. Khumalo has tried to highlight it through public
meetings and distributing scarves printed with demands for affordable
sanitary wear. As a result she has been repeatedly arrested and beaten,
but refuses to be deterred.
For more information,
see www.actsa.org
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