Women protest over soaring cost of living in Zimbabwe (26-06-07)

acards and denouncing President Robert Mugabe-demonstrated outside offices that house state propaganda papers-The Chronicle and the Sunday News respectively.

They swiftly dispersed before heavily armed riot police could disembark from their trucks and vans that had been ‘stopped at red robots.’ There were no arrests.

Regional gender chairperson of the NCA, Sidumiso Moyo told the agency after the protests: “We wanted to send a message to the government that women have been worst affected by the economic crises.

“…They can no longer afford basic necessary sanitary pads forcing them to recycle pieces of cloth and uses newspapers thereby risking infection.” A survey in the city revealed that sanitary pads are selling for $500 000.

Recently, state security agencies seized a consignment of donated sanitary pads meant for distribution to farmworkers in Zimbabwe’s farming areas who could no longer afford them due to their souring costs.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) had given the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers’ Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) its allocation of the pads sourced with the help of international partners.

On seizure, the farmworkers were told that the pads had been poisoned by former white commercial farmers, which is a blatant lie as the ZCTU, with the help of international partners and friends sourced for the sanitary ware- CAJ News.