The Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) has conducted a fact-finding mission to investigate reports that Mugabe's Zanu (PF) youth militia, Central Intelligence Organisation agents, soldiers, police and so-called "war veterans" affiliated with Zanu (PF) were using rape as a political weapon against women.
The research, led by Zimbabwean women's rights activist and filmmaker, Kudakwashe Chitsike, from RAU, contains interviews with women's rights activists, human rights monitors, Zimbabwean and other officials, journalists, doctors and women victims of sexual assault.
The chilling report, documents first-hand nearly a 3000 rape and attempted rape cases in the run-up to the 2008 elections in Zimbabwe by men loyal to President Robert Mugabe's Zanu (PF).
A disturbing pattern
RAU’s findings, combined with recent reports from local human rights monitors, the press and the MDC, all point to a disturbing pattern of rape by Zanu (PF) thugs and militia acting with impunity.
The report says many of the women who were systematically raped in 2008 were also severely beaten prior to the actual rape and then gang-raped until they lost consciousness. Many have had their property destroyed, lost their livelihood and have been intimidated by the perpetrators or police officers since their attack.
Many have been stigmatised and ostracised by their husbands and communities, and have subsequently had to flee their houses and communities.
"The main issue for many women in Zimbabwe is politically motivated violence. And it is not just rape that we are talking about. We are talking about beating and violent sexual assault of women, just because they vote for a party of their choice," said Chitsike.
The Zimbabwean authorities have never publicly denounced these practices nor fully disciplined those state agents known to have engaged in them. Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, as well as other similar regional treaties such as the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, and discrimination against women is forbidden by Zimbabwe's constitution.
The authorities' failure to investigate and prosecute rape and other violence against women, especially where state or state-supported actors are involved, violates domestic and international guarantees of due process and equal protection under law for all citizens.
The RAU report concludes that documented accounts of rape by uniformed military personnel and their Zanu (PF) allies are on the rise, that no action has been taken by the authorities to denounce rape or to punish those who engage in it, and that the authorities have failed to provide Zimbabwean women with judicial redress as required under both international and domestic law.
Post published in: Politics