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Zimbabwe women demand harsher penalties for sex offenders

by Marko Phiri | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Friday, 23 January 2015 13:24 GMT

Zimbabwean women participate in a demonstration during celebrations to commemorate International Women Day in Bulawayo, March 8, 2010. REUTERS/Emmanuel Chitat

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A campaign to crack down on offenders was launched after a video showed a gang accosting a woman in a mini skirt in Harare

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - W omen in Zimbabwe are calling for tougher penalties for sexual harassment of women amid public anger over a highly publicised street attack and with police data showing that some offenders have got off with fines as low as $5 in the past.

A campaign to crack down on offenders was launched this month after a video of a gang accosting a woman in a mini skirt in the capital Harare and stripping her naked was posted on social media and went viral.

So far only two of the gang have been arrested and their cases have yet to become before the courts.

The attack late last year came just two months after hundreds of women in the southern African nation staged "mini skirt marches" to protest against sexual harassment of women and what they saw as leniency by courts in dealing with offenders.

The protests are part of a growing outcry from women in Zimbabwe over their treatment in the streets, lack of parliamentary seats and workplace discrimination.

Gender rights activists led by legislator Jessie Majome, the former Deputy Minister of Women's Affairs, Gender and Community Development, have called for minimum mandatory sentences for sex offences.

"This sentencing approach is similar to the effective stock theft approach whereby nine years is the minimum sentence," Majome told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Majome, with support of other groups such as Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza), is pursuing the issue in the National Assembly with a motion seeking a review of all gender-based violence sentences by setting minimum mandatory sentences.

She also wants the assembly to recommit to a three-year gender based violence strategy agreed in 2012 that aimed to cut violence against women by 20 percent by this year by increasing protection, service provision, information management and coordination for women.

In June last year, then Vice President Joyce Mujuru released figures from the Zimbabwe police showing 11,000 women were raped between 2012 and March 2014 - 3,571 of them adults and 7,411 aged under 16.

This appeared to be a significant rise in numbers, but activists say accurate statistics are hard to pin down as many women are unwilling to come forward and report rape.

Majome welcomed moves by the ministry of justice to amend the law to provide minimum mandatory sentences for sexual abuse but said this was just one step towards combating the problem.

"Stiffer penalties are not the answer. The solution lies in addressing gender inequality, and employing a comprehensive and multi-sectoral response," Majome said.

Simon Mavhaire, a member of the Padare Men's Forum, is trying to involve men in the drive for gender equality in the nation of around 13 million people.

"Not all men are potential rapists...What we are doing is sensitizing men on gender-based violence and sexual harassment through outreach programmes and workshops," Mavhaire said.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith and Ros Russell)

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