Poverty is Africa’s greatest Challenge
30 000 children die everyday, one in three seconds because of extreme poverty. More than I billion people around the world live on less than $1 per day and have no access to clean water. This situation can be reversed by a 1%increase in developing countries share of the world’s export.
GCAP is an International NON Governmental Organisation whose main mandate is to fight poverty also say that such an increase could lift 128 nations out of poverty.
Poverty has remained one of Africa’s major challenges and has played a critical role in the continent’s poor health delivery systems. Poverty also has a had in the development of disease in Africa and has delayed efforts to deal with HIVand Aids which affects 25 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
South African president Thabo Mbeki once described HIVand Aids as nothing more than a disease of poverty. Mbeki’s observations may be inaccurate but the facts on the ground all point to poverty having a hand in the spread of the pandemic t
Mitigation measures need to be put in place to eradicate extreme poverty. The seriousness of this problem has given rise to a number of human rights abuses for instance if a person is too poor to access health services, their right to health has been infringed.
When a child cannot go to school, their right to education has been taken and when there is no access to food and shelter their rights are also infringed upon.
Own initiative needed
Another NGO, Actionaid say the fight against poverty can only be won if local communities are empowered to gain access to resources and opportunities necessary to overcome barriers to prosperity.
This can be done only when national governments provide basic essential services to citizens. African nations must also play their part in creating an economic environment that provides decent jobs for their citizens.
Governments must protect their citizens especially women and children from violence
However rich countries must provide the resources that spur development and push for fair international rules with developing countries to make it pro-poor and sustainable.
G8 Intervention necessary
During the recently ended G8 Summit, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to increase aid to Africa. If the leaders of the eight most economically successful countries make good on their word, it could be a starting point for the eradication of poverty.
Their gesture of goodwill will be strengthen further when they ensure that the money arrives on time and also that they deliver on the 8billion which is owed since 2006.
Regional Director of Oxfam Charles Abani says that the gesture of goodwill would be meaningless if the Aid comes with conditions.
“The G8 must move away from the tendency of attaching economic conditions to aid and debt relief as it hinders development in Africa,” he said.
Good Nutrition Keeps the Doctor Away
Eat Nutritiously and live longer
Good Nutrition Keeps the Doctor Away
Good nutrition plays a pivotal role in the fight against chronic diseases and can make the significant difference between life and death. Betty Mugabe is a living example and this is her story.
As she smiles, one is mesmerized by her eyes and perfectly white teeth, her skin complexion is flawless and everything about her excludes good health and well being.
The lady exudes so much positive energy.
One would never believe that this youthful healthy looking woman is not 21 but indeed 40 and that she has been living with the HIV virus that causes Aids for over 15 years.
Betty Mugabe*, is a perfect example of how good nutrition can be a conduit to fight against diseases even HIV and Aids. She strongly believes that there is no better way to fight the disease than a healthy diet.
The mother of three says that the secret to good health is in food. “Good nutrition has seen me beating the odds with HIV. I just ensure that I have a balanced diet and everything goes into perfect eating order,” she says.
Betty* says that her diet is not only good but cost effective as most of the foods she eats are locally grown and easy to access. Her diet consists a lot of locally grown vegetables like Mowa, Tsine and pumpkin leaves. For her fruits she eats bananas, oranges, mangoes and guavas which she grows in her backyard orchard.
The HIV and Aids activist also speaks with pride of her herbal garden in which she has invested several flower pots. Agnes swears by her orchard, vegetable garden and herbal garden as being the only things that she needs to maintain good health.
“Its been 15 years since I discovered my status and I am not sure when I contracted the disease but to this day, I am not yet on Antiretroviral Treatment,” she beams at this remark.
Betty* also believes that her morning jogging not only keeps her shapely but goes hand in hand with the healthy diet and lifestyle she leads. She however that says Antiretroviral Treatment is good and she will not hesitate to take it when the need arises but good nutrition is necessary.
It has since emerged that providing Antiretroviral Treatment without nutritional support has proven unfruitful. The big challenge then for the treatment of this and other chronic disease is access to nutritious food. This situation is regrettable because the continent is famous for its farming activities. Some of the nutritious foods also grow in most backyard garden’s in many African homes or wildly.
Veges grow wildly
Take the mushroom for instance, this vegetable delicacy is found in abundance in the forest and all one has to .do is go and pick it. We also grow cabbages, mangoes, bananas, wheat, guava’s and many other nutritious foods one can think of.
The time to go begging hand in foot should come to an end and we as African’s should learn to use the available resources sustainably inorder to rescue the crippling health systems in Africa.
According to a report by the Joint WHO and FAO Expert Consultation on Diet Nutrition and the prevention of Chronic Diseases which met in 2002, there is correlation between chronic diseases and dietary lifestyles.
“Diet and nutrition are important factors in the promotion and maintenance of good health throughout the entire life course. Their role as determinants of chronic non communicable diseases is well established and they therefore occupy a prominent position in prevention activities,” reads part of the report.
The grouping of Health and Nutrition experts also state that some of the chronic diseases can be prevented by good nutrition although more research needs to done in this area. They say that diet plays a critical role and is a risk factor for chronic diseases. However good the nutrition might be, it will not do much for the body without a exercise.
Balanced Diet
The number one question which needs answering is what is a balanced diet? A balanced diet must contain carbohydrate that provide strength for the body and can be found in Maize meal, rice, potatoes, yams, bread, wheat, spaghetti and cereals.
It must also contain Proteins which are essential for growth and repair and can be found in beef, poultry and eggs. Fats are also an essential part of the diet as they provide energy to the body and is usually found in fruit and vegetables.
Vitamins are also essential but should be consumed in small quantities for instance vitamin A is good for the eyes, Vitamin B and C are needed for your body to repair itself while vitamin E is good for reproduction. Vitamin D can be made in the skin and is role is to absorb calcium.
Another important component in a balanced diet are the mineral salts for healthy teeth bones and muscles while fibres help the intestines to function properly. It is found in fruit and grains.
Pictures in between text: for instance the mushroom,
Vegetables, poultry and beef, and the vitamins source
*Betty Mugabe-not real name.
Birthdays are very emotional
Ive just turned 30 and one would think that í’d be happy about this because not very many people these days get to live to a ripe 30. I am happy its just that i can’t stop being emotional about it. Lateley, the sligthest thing can get me down and make me cry and i’m even begining to feel unappreciated by those close to me. At a time like this where no attention is forth coming, what’s a girl got to do but work, work , work.
Funny coming from me coz the better alternative would have been shopping. I would have shopped till i dropped but ther’s just nothing to shop. The shops are virtually empty, and as if this was not enough, i can’t even go binging because ther’s no food either.
The good thing though that has come out of all this is that we’ve all been taught to be resilient. The most horrible thing is that there was no birthday cake for yours trully. My mates couldn’t even take me out for some drinks coz those are in short supply as well. OOH, The other good thing to come out of these shortages is that at least water is available and that’s a healthy drink isn’t it.
Freedom, FREEdom, FREEDOM
It is a heavy heart that Ibring this article to you. My heart bleeds and will not stop until there is freedom. Freedom to be, freedom of expression, of association. Yes even for journalists. The issue of basic Freedom and safety is not a thing that Zimbabwean journalists can take for granted.
Journalists have been physically emotionally and financially abused and in worst cases killed but that has not killed their spirits. Journalism in Zimbabwe is what it is today because of this abuse. We operate in an environment where were are expecfted to hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil. I have been following up an heart rending article written by Luke Tamborinyoka.
The article below was first published by Zimonline speaks of the gross human rights abuses people succumb to in Zimbabwe’s prisions. Tamborinyoka actually got a double portion of this kind of hospitality simply because he is a journalsit; Below is the full account :
71 DAYS IN PRISON:PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
By Luke Tamborinyoka
HARARE - Inscribed on the door of cell C6 at Harare Remand Prison is a simple message in the local vernacular Shona language: “Zvichapera boyz dzangu”, a telling reminder that this suffering will eventually come to an end.
I walked out of the prison gates at exactly 1933hrs on Thursday, 7 June 2007, after a three months-stint as a guest of the State.
But even the euphoria for new-found freedom did not erase my memory of the simple inscription obviously scribbled by an optimistic home-sick inmate.
After what I had gone through, it remained a pleasant surprise that I was finally out of the belly of the beast. The ordeal had indeed come to an end.
In the glaring moonlight, I turned my back to the dilapidated two-storey building that constitutes the D-class section of this cursed and unimaginative piece of architecture.
I painstakingly walked the final 10 metres to the prison fence and immediately jumped into the crushing embrace of my loving wife, Susan.
I ordered that we quickly drive away, never again to look back to the dingy prison buildings where I had seen over 10 people succumb to various diseases related to malnutrition.
The D-class section, reserved for “dangerous” suspects, was my home for 71 dark days.
It was a place where one had to adjust to tough conditions such as leg irons, dirty khakhi shirts and shorts, sub-standard food, tight security, the company of hardened criminals and scowling prison officers.
For me, Harare Remand prison represented the dark rictus of death. It was an odd place for hardened criminals and innocent prisoners like me whose persecution arose simply because of our relationship with Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
Harare Remand Prison was a potpourri of the genuinely guilty and those whom the tyrant wanted to torment and intimidate. Harare Remand will forever remain etched in my mind as one of tyranny’s prized institutions plucked straight from the heart of Hades.
It was a waiting room of extreme fortunes where two cellmates could part to go to contrasting destinations: one for home and the other for the guillotine.
My ordeal started on a sunny Wednesday afternoon on 28 March 2007. On that day, over 500 armed policemen descended on Harvest House, the national headquarters of the MDC.
From 1215hrs to 1530hrs, an assortment of visibly drunk policemen wrenched open doors and seized party equipment, from documents to computers and laptops.
They stole people’s mobile phones, prised open cabinet drawers and stuffed money, passports and other valuables into their pockets. Everyone was ordered to lie down while the sadists among them indiscriminately battered our backs with batons.
My friend, Kudakwashe Matibiri, and I lay down for close to three hours while adventure-seeking young policemen hit us with booted feet and gun-butts.
The sorry sight resembled a scary scene from an Alfred Hitchcock whodunit.
Mugabe’s merchants of death had come to Harvest House ostensibly to recover “weapons of war” which they said were hidden at the MDC headquarters.
They combed cabinet drawers, ceilings and any other crevices within reach. They poked every nook and cranny. Like determined bloodhounds, they sniffed all sorts of odd places such as toilet cisterns and air vents in search of the elusive MDC “weapons”.
Their desperation was understandable in the circumstances. The following day on Thursday, 29 June 2007, Mugabe was due to leave for Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to explain the crackdown on the opposition: his police officers had shot dead an MDC activist, Gift Tandare. May his soul rest in peace.
Mugabe’s clearly partisan police force had beaten to pulp MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai and other senior opposition party officials. Several MDC executives and party members had been abducted, severely beaten up and dumped in far-away places.
Mugabe had to have a plausible explanation for the SADC leaders in Dar es Salaam and the prospect of an arms cache at Harvest House would give him a credible story to justify the violent crackdown on a legitimate opposition.
They were obviously disappointed when they failed to find even a box of matches at Harvest House. The regime’s grand plot had fallen apart at the seams.
Harvest House is a six-storey building in which the MDC occupies the two upper floors with the rest occupied by an assortment of tenants.
The police ordered everyone in the building, including tenants and their clients, to get into the police vehicles.
About 100 people were taken to the infamous Room 93 of the Law and Order section at Harare Central police station where the series of the nights of terror immediately commenced.
That night, we were severely assaulted. One by one we were called into another office where all sorts of wild allegations were made against us. We were part of the MDC thugs that had “petrol-bombed” police stations, the police alleged.
We worked for a puppet opposition party. We wanted to hand the country back to the white colonialists and any such drivel associated with a regime that is fast accelerating the nation towards an inevitable implosion.
The following day, the number of suspects was trimmed down to 23 and eventually to seven. No charge had yet been preferred against us.
For three nights, we were tortured and brutally assaulted with a baseball bat, clenched fists and batons. Ian Makone and Paul Madzore came out the worse for wear in the sordid ordeal.
For three days, the beatings and assaults continued.
For three days we were denied access to food, legal and medical assistance.
For three days, the sadists continued to call us one by one, asking all sorts of questions.
For three days our condition deteriorated due to the incessant torture. They wanted to know more about the MDC’s ‘democratic resistance campaign’.
They alleged that the MDC was beating up the police.
On Saturday, 31 March, we were finally told that a court order had been obtained that we should go home because the police had detained us for more than 48 hours without preferring any charge against us.
It was then that an official whom I suspect to be a member of the dreaded state security Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) called me to a private room.
He said I worked in the MDC’s information and publicity department and I was responsible for the “Roll of Shame”, a column in a local weekly where the department named and shamed all government and ZANU PF personalities who were committing human rights abuses.
He referred to what he called “anti-government speeches” that I made five years ago when I was secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists. He accused me of writing for “anti-government” on-line publications.
He said I had retained my news editor’s position at the banned Daily News and I was responsible for co-ordinating the pool of former Daily News reporters to write for anti-government on-line publications.
For my alleged “crimes”, the officer said I was going to be imprisoned.
Faced with the prospect of releasing us on the basis of the court order, a grim-faced officer called the seven of us into a room and read the charges against us.
We were being charged with carrying out a spate of petrol-bombings in Harare and other cities. We were charged under section 24 of the Criminal Law (Reform) Codification Act and were specifically being accused of “resisting the government and seeking to remove the government through acts of sabotage, banditry and terrorism.”
I was shocked. Me, a terrorist bomber?
The real terrorists I knew were the State security agents who had pumped six bullets into the groin of opposition activist Patrick Kombayi way back in 1990.
Even though the culprits, Kizito Chivamba and Elias Kanengoni, were convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, Mugabe had pardoned them.
The real terror bombers I knew were those who had blown The Daily News’ printing press to smithereens in the early hours of 27 January 2001. They have never been arrested.
The terror bombers I knew were those who had petrol-bombed The Daily News’ offices in Harare and Bulawayo in 2001.
The real terrorists were those who in the 1980s directed and carried out the killing of 20 000 innocent civilians in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces, all in the name of quelling an armed insurrection in the two provinces against the government.
The real terrorists were those who had just murdered an MDC activist, Gift Tandare, in cold blood in Harare’s Highfield suburb on 11 March 2007.
The real terrorists were ruling ZANU PF party activist Tom Kainos Kitsiyatota Zimunya and state agent Joseph Mwale, who petrol-bombed and killed MDC activists Talent Mabika and Tichaona Chiminya in broad daylight on April 26, 2000 at Murambinda service centre in rural Buhera district.
Some of these real terrorists have never been arrested while in the case of Mwale, he remains an employee of the state despite a High Court order that he be apprehended and prosecuted for the murder of Mabika and Chiminya.
In any case, the real terrorism was the one that had just been meted out on us at the Law and Order section offices where these strange charges had been concocted.
It is the most misnamed office where neither law nor order prevailed.
We were taken to court under heavy security. This drama, of course, was meant for the state media.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper went on to gleefully report the arrest of the MDC terror-bombers, including the “journalist-cum-activist” Luke Tamborinyoka.
(When the State case eventually collapsed like a deck of cards three months later, the same State media thought it was not a story worth reporting - so much for professional journalism).
There was no magistrate when we arrived. We were almost collapsing due to hunger and the injuries sustained after three days of torture.
Someone must have summoned ambulances to the Magistrates Court but the police ordered that we not be allowed access to medical attention.
One of my colleagues, Shame Wakatama, collapsed and we all thought he had died. It was then that the police panicked and allowed the ambulance crew to drive us to Harare’s Avenues clinic.
The court later convened at the clinic and magistrate Gloria Takundwa remanded us in hospital under prison guard until the following Monday. We were put on intravenous tubes by hospital staff eager to nourish and boost our wasted bodies.
But the worst was yet to come!
I am not ordinarily given to fear. But when about 10 gun-totting agents of the state’s spy Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) backed by prison officers burst into the clinic at around midnight and demanded to take “our people”, I became jelly-kneed.
They scared the hell out of an adamant sister-in-charge, violently plucked out our intravenous tubes and frog-marched us via the emergency exit to a nearby van.
The sight of AK rifles in the van was frightening but the thought of driving in the deathly quiet early morning hours with armed CIO agents to an unknown destination was enough to almost paraylse one with fear.
The eight of us were later dumped at Harare Remand prison at around 1:30hrs, breaking the prison’s own record of “check-in” time in the process.
My colleagues, Zebediah Juaba and Brighton Matimba who had come out worst during the torture, were immediately taken to the ill-equipped prison hospital to await the attention of a government doctor.
The “doctor” was to pitch up at the prison complex after two months and orally interviewed the 30 of us in about 20 minutes.
The oral interview took place long after my two colleagues had been discharged to the cells even though they were still in critical condition.
Matibiri and I were allocated cell C6, where I carved out a place for myself near the corner.
That corner was later to be referred to as the “MDC’s Information Corner” after it emerged it was in the same corner where the late party spokesperson Learnmore Jongwe met his mysterious death in 2002.
Later, more MDC activists were to join us in Remand Prison and more were to be detained at the prison hospital where they never saw a doctor.
These include Ian Makone, Paul Madzore, Morgan Komichi, Phillip Katsande and Dennis Murira.
Life in prison was an ordeal on its own. Remand prison is supposed to be temporary but some inmates had stayed at the prison for years, seemingly abandoned by the state which brought them to the jailhouse and by relatives who no longer come to visit either because they have long died of HIV/AIDS or they have simply grown tired of the routine trips to the prison.
More than 95 percent of the inmates have no relatives who bring them food and they depend on the prison meal of a morsel of sadza (thick porridge made from maize) and cabbage boiled in salted water.
Rations of soap and toilet paper were last seen in the 1980s, we were told and a colleague, Arthur Mhizha, learnt the hard lesson that in a Zimbabwean prison, you bathe with one hand while with the other, you hang on to your prized piece of soap.
The ‘MDC team’, as we were known, became famous for donating some of its food to other inmates, including Fungai Murisa, one of the ZANU PF activists who is facing a murder charge after he and others allegedly murdered an MDC activist in Makoni East in Manicaland province.
Food is acquired at a premium in prison. It is a one-meal per day affair served from an aluminium bin. Yes! A bin! And it is only acquired after a stampede that would leave rugby players green with envy.
Only adventurous inmates such as Reason, one of the most notorious prisoners in D-class, could afford the rare taste of meat. He was well known for what became known as the “rat barbecue.”
He would “murder” the stray rats that patronized the dirty toilet chamber in cell C6 and roast them on the overhead globe during the night when prison officers are snoring the night away.
For the less adventurous, it was one meal of sadza and cabbage, taken every day at around 2pm before everyone was ordered to retire to bed at around 3pm.
The cells are another overcrowded affair, with an average of between 45 and 70 prisoners sharing a single cell and battling the night away in the usual pastime of fighting away the cold and killing lice.
One also learnt to meet with suspects with fascinating and sometimes just unbelievable stories of how they ended up in jail. One such character was Takawira Mwanza, a former army officer who was arrested and served four years for stealing Mugabe’s prized bull from his Norton farm.
The bull, which was airlifted from China, turned up at Mwanza’s rural home in Sanyati. Mwanza says that even though he served his sentence for stock theft at Chikurubi Maximum Prison, Mugabe was not happy that he should be left to go home.
He says he is currently languishing at Harare Remand prison, waiting for the day when Mugabe wakes up in a good mood and order the prison officers to allow him to go home and meet his family.
In the meantime, he has to contend with his two blankets in his beloved corner in cell C6 at Harare remand prison.
The MDC president, Morgan Tsvangirai, left his own mark at Remand prison. On Monday, 13 May 2007, he came to visit us and when he proceeded to see Morgan Komichi in the prison hospital, there was chaos from other sections when both inmates and prison officers went into a frenzy, shouting “President” as they stampeded to catch a glimpse of the man who has given Mugabe a nightmare.
The officer-in-charge of Harare Remand Prison, known as Musonza, was transferred to Prison Headquarters after the incident.
Tsvangirai was also “banned” from visiting Remand prison lest the officers and the inmates got into another frenzy!
Moreover, the chants of “President” directed at Tsvangirai in a government complex made a lot of people uncomfortable!
By mid-April, there were 30 MDC activists in prison, some shot and abducted from their homes while others were arrested in the streets of Harare to face the same charges of terrorism.
What kept us going was the inspiring presence of Ian Makone, the simplicity of Zebedia Juaba, the comforting singing from Paul Madzore and Shame Wakatama and the gospel teachings of Kenneth Nhemachena.
In June, the State case began to crumble after it emerged that it had created fictitious witnesses to incriminate us in acts of terrorism.
For our charge, the State consented on 7 June 2007 that it had no evidence and we were eventually removed from remand.
But another reality struck as I walked out of the prison complex, that in fact the whole country was just another big prison. Harare Remand was simply a microcosm of what the whole country has become.
There is no food on the shelves; starvation is stalking the nation and people can no longer afford to visit each other because of prohibitive transport costs. Zimbabwe has simply become a big prison with Mugabe as the chief warden.
Our unwarranted arrest showed that the regime has developed sudden bouts of panic. Mugabe has every reason to panic. When he came to power after the crucial election of 1980, he was 56 years old.
Morgan Tsvangirai will be 56 on 10 March next year - a trivial statistical coincidence but maybe one that could still scare an old tyrant in an advanced state of panic.
*Luke Tamborinyoka is the technical head of the MDC’s information and publicity department. He was news editor of the banned Daily News and a former secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists. He is currently writing a book on his experiences and his stint in prison.
A tragedy of lives
This book really touched my life, below is the review
Book ReviewA Tragedy of Lives: Women in Prison in Zimbabwe (320pg), 2003Reviewed by Thelma Chikwanha
A Tragedy of Lives is indeed a befitting title of the 320 paged book which chronicles the lives of 33 female former convicts.
This is because for them being in prison was a horrific experience that will take long before the memories can be erased.
The women whose ages are not revealed can range from anything between 18 and 50 narrate their experiences in a heart rending manner which will see the reader cry, laugh and sigh at the gravity of the inhumane conditions they were made to live under.
Knitted expertly together by the Zimbabwe Women’s Writers and edited by acclaimed female editor Irene Stanton, the book goes into the finer details of what being a woman prisoner in Zimbabwe is all about.
The chilling accounts of physical and emotional abuse and total disregard of the law by the very same people that are the custodians of law and order are enough to discourage a would be offender.
The book not only reveals how the Zimbabwe Prison Service turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the fundamental human rights which are health food and shelter which even prisoners are entitled to.
A Tragedy of Lives speaks of put lightly the inhumane living conditions that women in prison have to put up with.
In Zimbabwe women prisoners constitute only 3.5% a manageable percentage that should see their living conditions being at least modest but alas.
According to the book, most of the prison cells across the country have unsuitable or no ablution systems to speak of. Where they are present, they are not functional.
In their book, the women writers narrate heartrending stories of women being forced to urinate in 25litre cooking oil tins which are perforated at the top putting them at risks of being cut by these tins in the process.
The prison authorities however pay no regard to this health hazard that could occur if ever there was physical contact with this tin. In some cell however, the women had to impose a no toilet rule at night as they could not contain the smell.
The inmates then take turns to empty the contents of this container which sometimes overflows, exposing the prisoners to infection.
The reader will definitely squirm when they come across accounts of little children crawling in a cell with droppings of menstrual blood on the floor.
This is because; prisoners are not allocated enough sanitary towels. The women interviewed said they were given half a pad a day and had to make do with it.
They actually became innovative and started using crushed newspapers or pieces of blankets as sanitary towels.
Some prisoners pulled out pieces of cotton wool from the pad which they rolled and used as tampons thereby exposing themselves to infections as sometimes it would be difficult to pull out the piece of cotton from the uterus.
“I push mine quite deep to avoid embarrassment. I get stomach pains and each time I pull out the little ball, I notice clots of blood but I have to feel secure,” reads part of an interviewed with Mercy, a former prisoner.
According to Section 58 of the Prisons Act Chapter 7:11 infants are admitted into prisons with their mother until they are weaned after which the relative takes over custody or the government through the Department of Social Welfare, however some female prisoners live with their children until the age of two.
The book, whose language is user friendly, also highlights the violent crimes being committed by prison guards in the execution of their duties.
The women interviewed revealed chilling accounts of physical assault meted out as punishment to prisoners.
Prisoners would be made to lie down on the ground and beaten up on their feet. As if that were not enough, they would be further lashed if they cried out in pain.
Throughout the compelling stories, it also becomes apparent that these women were driven to crime because of their difficult circumstances which are almost always linked to poverty.
The writers also try to address through skillful interviewing the underlying issues prior to the committing of crimes which then go on to explain the cause of the crime.
The crimes committed by these women range from theft, murder, domestic violence, reproductive rights, fraud, possession of dangerous drugs, prostitution, and shoplifting.
All these crimes are linked to poverty which more than often creates stressful situations for the women who then commit crimes in response to the economic pressures they face.
One grandmother was arrested and convicted after she threw her grandchild into the fire in an attempt to break up a fight between him and another grandchild.
It however emerged in the interview that at the time she was under a lot of stress stemming from the fact that she had several grandchildren to look after with no financial support coming from the parents of the children. This would have triggered something in her and forced her to act irrationally by crossing the boundary between what is permissible and what is not.
“I am still (after release) living here in the village with my three grandchildren. It’s a difficult life, especially where there is no food… I sell some of my chickens to get money to buy food. Sometimes their parents bring a little money, a thousand dollars for example and sometimes they do not bring any, I guess they don’t have it,” reads part of the interview conducted with the grandmother identified only as Agnes in page 2.
Another woman who was also convicted for Arson after she set her mother-in-laws hut on fire killing an innocent child in the process; said she had been enraged by her husband who would spend all of her earnings from her harvest with another woman.
One of the contributors Jill Stewart, who is a Professor of Law at the University of Zimbabwe, says that the crimes committed by most women in prisons in Zimbabwe are a direct result of gender imbalances.
“Through the very nature of being women, of heaving heavy unrewarding and unrewarded gendered roles thrust upon them, they sometimes responded with violent outbursts.
“Many of these women were exploited as cheap labour in marriage, cast aside for other women who were feted and entertained,” said Professor Stewart
