Women are being regularly tortured and sexually abused by Zimbabwean security forces for their opposition to President Robert Mugabe’s regime, a new report by a leading rights group charged on Tuesday.
”Many of us have been detained more than once and suffered extreme abuse perpetrated by state actors,” Jenni Williams, national coordinator of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza), said at the launch of the report in Johannesburg.
”Police threats, insults by police officers, unlawful detention and humiliating and degrading treatment were all reported with high frequency, but assaults, psychological torture and physical torture were also very high.”
Williams said that three-quarters of the Woza members that were surveyed said they had experienced insults and humiliating and degrading treatment, while half have suffered assaults and psychological torture.
”Forty percent have suffered physical torture and 50% were detained longer than the statutory limit of 48 hours without being brought to court.”
Among those present at the launch in South Africa, which is now home to hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean immigrants, was Woza activist Clarah Makoni, who broke down in tears as she related her ordeal in April when she went to deliver food to friends taking part in a protest over electricity shortages.
”I was scared, very scared. I have never seen such animosity,” the 19-year-old from Harare said.
”I was beaten, kicked and tortured by the police … After several hours I was told to report at the police station the following day as they could not arrest me due to my age. When I went again I was beaten and tortured again till I fell sick.
”I was taken to [the southern city of] Bulawayo where they torture people, where the torture continued for hours. I was whipped while lying on my stomach. They then put me in a room full of ice.”
The teenager was then ordered to cross an electric fence before having to make her way back home, a journey of more than 400km.
The Mugabe regime, subject to sanctions by the European Union and United States, has been regularly criticised over its treatment of its opponents.
Main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was among a group of dozens of activists who were assaulted as they tried to attend a prayer rally earlier this year. — AFP
