- HARARE - At least 137 young
girls were raped in Harare in January, according to figures released by
a rights activist on Wednesday.
-
- She described the figure as "staggering" for
a capital of 1.5 million people.
-
- A separate study revealed that 18% of Zimbabwean women
had been raped in their lifetime, according to Janah Ncube, head of the
Woman's Coalition of Zimbabwe.
-
- Ncube told scores of protesters who took to the streets
on Wednesday to protest against rape that the figure for the number of
children raped in Harare in January came from a clinic where most cases
like this were treated.
-
- More than 90% of reported rape victims were infected
by HIV, according to the coalition. Zimbabwe is one of the countries worst
affected by the Aids scourge, with at least 3 000 Aids-related deaths a
week.
-
- "We are really very angry, we are outraged, we want
a law to protect us," said Ncube.
-
- The protesters included women, men, parliamentarians
and rights activists.
-
- Has become an accepted phenomenon
-
- Escorted by police, the group marched from the mayor's
office to the city centre park, Africa Unity Square, days after a woman
was gang-raped by five homeless people in the capital in the early evening.
-
- The city's acting mayor Sekesai Makwavarara expressed
concern that violence against women had taken root in the country.
-
- "Abuse of women has become an accepted phenomenon
in our society and we should put an end to this," she said.
-
- "Rape is a form of torture and it kills," said
the mayor.
-
- Last week, the 38-year-old woman, walking from her office
to her flat in the city centre, was dragged into an alley and gang-raped
by five men.
-
- "Gang rape has become commonplace," said Ncube.
"We are now scared to walk in the streets even in broad daylight."
-
- She said that in the early 1980s, the "government
had enough police to unleash into the streets of Harare to round up women
who were walking unaccompanied by males, claiming that they were prostitutes".
-
- "Why can the same police not be unleashed on the
streets of Harare to round up street kids who have grown up to be street
rapists?" she asked.
-
-
- The protesters carried placards urging the government
to round up street children and take them to farms.
-
- The government has acquired, under its controversial
land reforms, millions of hectares of land from whites for resettlement
of landless blacks.
-
- http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-259_1482249,00.html
|
