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Zim
women's struggle 'costly'
News24.com
July 25, 2007
http://www.24.com/news/?p=ra&i=606477
Harare - At the same
time as the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is
taking steps to protect women from domestic violence, its security
forces are raining down baton blows on women activists, one female
victim said on Wednesday.
Grace Kwinjeh, a 33-year-old
mother of three, was one of four women in a group of opposition
supporters, including Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, who was badly beaten by Zimbabwean police on
March 11 for trying to attend a prayer rally. Sixty-four-year-old
Sekai Holland was another.
Images of the two women's
battered legs, arms, buttocks were circulated widely in the aftermath
of the attack, fuelling international outcry about the state's crackdown
on the opposition.
"We just
had the Domestic
Violence Bill enacted (passed by parliament at the end of 2006)
but at the same time state violence against women is increasing,"
said the soft-spoken journalist-turned-activist.
'Able-bodied
men flee abroad'
After being beaten by
police using batons and iron bars - first together with other detainees
and then later in a police cell - Kwinjeh suffered dizzy spells,
vomiting, heavy bruising and could "hardly walk".
"It's all meant
to humiliate you so that you lose your self-confidence. It sort
of diminishes you as a person. But when you're a leader you have
to keep pushing on," the MDC's former representative in Brussels
said, swallowing hard.
Dozens of female
activists, including several members of the rights group Women
of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza), have reported being subjected to beatings
while in police custody, global rights watchdog Amnesty
International said on Wednesday.
Women who are often left
shouldering the responsibility for feeding the family as able-bodied
men flee abroad in search of work, are badly treated if they protest
government policies, the report found.
For example, women's
rights activists were barred from buying the staple maize grain
from the state-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB), the country's sole
grain seller, it said.
'Raped
while crossing the border'
"The Zimbabwean
government needs to address the underlying economic and social problems
that are motivating women to protest - rather than attacking them
and criminalizing their legitimate activities in defence of human
rights," said Irene Khan, the secretary general of Amnesty.
Sanitary towels are now
a luxury, even for middle-class women. A box of tampons cost her
almost as much as the rent on her apartment in Harare, she said.
As women run out of options
for survival, more and more women are joining the men in trying
to jump the three-deep border fence into South Africa, leaving their
children behind with family.
But protesting with your
feet is as dangerous as protesting on Zimbabwe's streets. A farmer
in Musina on the South African side of the border told of finding
a woman naked, nearly dead, after she was raped while crossing the
border. - Sapa-dpa
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