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Politically
motivated violence against women in Zimbabwe 2000-2010: A review
of the public domain literature
Research
and Advocacy Unit (RAU)
August
2011
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Background
to PMV in Zimbabwe
Politically motivated
violence (PMV) is defined as the unlawful use of force or violence
against persons or property in order to coerce or intimidate a government
or the civilian population in furtherance of political or social
objectives.
In Zimbabwe politically
motivated violence dates as far back as the pre-colonial era. History
tells us that, during the pre-colonial era, violence was mostly
driven and inspired by the struggle for land, resources and chieftainship
while in the colonial era it was mostly centered on the struggle
for land and ethnic recognition. In the post-colonial era however,
violence became much more pronounced and mostly centered on the
struggle for political hegemony, and this period saw many Zimbabweans
being exposed to all forms of violence particularly before, during
and after elections.
Examples of such election
violence include the "notorious" Matabeleland massacres
of the 1980-1989 era also known as the "Gukurahundi."
During this deadly period, at least 20 000 innocent civilians were
killed; some were buried alive, burnt in their homes, while others
were bayoneted.
Violence did
not end with Gukurahundi but became even much more pronounced during
the turn of the 21st century, following the formation of the main
opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999
thereby threatening Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
(ZANU PF's) support base in the landmark June 2000 Parliamentary
elections and subsequent elections i.e. 2002,
2005
and 2008.
This forced ZANU PF to resort to all forms of violence, and trickery
in a bid to outwit the MDC in the electoral race and maintain its
hold on power. A case in point was the introduction and implementation
of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) that was mainly
centered on luring back the support base of the war veterans and
the masses in general, that was fast waning from its grip in favour
of the MDC. Other classical examples of this violence in the post-colonial
era include the 2000 referendum, the presidential election of 2002and
the pre run off June
2008 controversial presidential elections among others which
saw many people losing their lives, maimed, raped, abducted, losing
properties and exposed to all forms of torture all in the name of
fighting for political hegemony.
In all the reports
on the violence, and especially the violence since 2000, there has
been a decided lack of a gendered perspective. This does not mean
that there are no reports about the violence experienced by women,
but that there is not generally an attempt to disaggregate the data
to reflect the specific issues related to women. There are a number
of reports dealing with the violence experienced by female activists
from organizations such as the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA) or Women
of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), or dealing with women refugees, and
a number of reports on women's views about and experiences of PMV.
There are also reports dealing with specific violations such as
rape and sexual violence. A recent trend to disaggregating reports
on political violence by the Zimbabwe
Peace Project (ZPP) shows both the frequencies of women affected
by PMV as well those of women participating in violence as perpetrators.
However, it
is interesting to see the extent to which all these reports have
had an effect upon public consciousness, and one of the easiest
ways in which to do this is to look at what has been reported in
the public domain in newspapers, both in print and online. This
was the aim of this report: to see to what extent issues related
to PMV against women have been profiled in the media, and, furthermore,
what were the issues that were picked up. This was achieved through
analyzing all the reports documented on www.zimbabwesituation.com
from January 2000 to December 2010, with a focus on women. In this
desk survey a total of 335 reports on PMV against women were extracted
and scrutinized and the results make up this report.
Given that this
survey's main focus was to look at PMV against women during the
years 2000 - 2010, only articles that made particular reference
to women's experiences during this period were extracted and analyzed,
thereby giving a total of 335 violations against women. In terms
of other demographics like age group, place of residence, etc.,
the selection criterion for the articles was all inclusive and cut
across the rural and urban, provincial, age, race, gender, and level
of education divides.
No comparison was made
with the complete data base of reports, and hence we do not give
any indication in regards to the proportion of reports concerning
women against the total number of reports, which must be in the
range of thousands.
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