A report published in the last issue of this newspaper on the rampancy of sexual abuse in Zimbabwe is disturbing, not only because it gives an idea of the scale of re-education that must be undertaken once normalcy has been restored, but also because its subtext is a metaphor for the raping of the entire nation by the Mugabe dictatorship.Quoting the Voice of America (VOA) the report said 50 per cent of about 2000 respondents interviewed in a survey conducted by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Childrens Fund said they had been forcibly sexually violated and did not know how to cope with the trauma they suffered.
It comes as no surprise at all that the incidences of rape and other sexual abuse is so high in Zimbabwe. They constitute what can safely be referred to as organised crime, because they are fomented and given the official seal of approval by the establishment.
It is common knowledge, for example, that Zanu (PF) regards rape and sexual harassment as viable and acceptable election campaign strategies.
That party has regularly and routinely unleashed youth militias notoriously known as Green Bombers to rape and sexually abuse women and children as a way of intimidating and coercing entire communities to vote a certain way.
And not only is the rampant debauchery of these misguided youths lethal in the age of AIDS and HIV, they also violate long-established taboos when they rape babies and women old enough to be their grandmothers.
While the efforts of the three organisations named above to set up centres in Zimbabwe to help victims of sexual abuse are commendable, this problem will not be solved as long as our country teems with young males who have been indoctrinated to believe that it is acceptable to follow their impulses with violent disregard for the rights of others. They need to be re-educated and rehabilitated.
An example of the gloating and self-satisfied attitude of the establishment to these gross human rights violations was demonstrated recently when some female interns complained about being sexually abused by male managers at Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH).
ZBH chief executive officer, Happison Muchechetere, is reported to have launched an angry tirade in which he ordered a probe into the interns complaints to be stopped after decreeing that the young women were prostitutes. In other words, they had brought the abuses upon themselves!
But the notion that women should sacrifice their bodies, dignity and aspirations in order to spare the egos, political careers and whims of the powerful and influential is preposterous. Women are not an imaginary part of Zimbabwean society, they constitute 52 per cent of the population and their rights are human rights.
Word for the day
For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s; upon them he has set the world.
He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness.
It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the Lord will be shattered. He will thunder against them from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.
1 Samuel 2: 8-10
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga