Religion and Poverty Force Girls into Early Marriages

HARARE – While her peers get ready to go to school each morning, 14-year-old Matipedza (not her real name) of Marange district in Manicaland has to stay behind to prepare breakfast for her 67-year-old husband.

Although her marriage is not legally registered, it is customarily recognised, and the teenager is expected to live as a housewife and soon bear children.

“I can’t go against [the will of] my elders and leave my husband in order to attend school. Besides, where would I go if I leave? My parents will not welcome me,” said Matipedza.

 Her case is not unique. In fact, the majority of school-going girls in Marange, some as young as ten, have been married to older men from their church, the Johanne Marange Apostolic sect, which is infamous for believing in polygamy. Most marriages are arranged between adult men and under-age girls. Although it is criminal under the recently enacted Domestic Violence Act to marry off an under-age girl – the age of sexual consent in Zimbabwe is 16 years – it is difficult to stop these marriages, as members of the sect are complicit and secretive.

Recently released research by Harare-based non-governmental organisation Women and Law Southern Africa (WLSA) has shown that young girls in early marriages are likely to suffer birth complications, some of them resulting in death. The WLSA study also revealed that those girls are prone to cervical cancer, suffer psychological trauma and encounter a host of problems, such as failing to deal with the social pressures that come with being a wife in a polygamous union. The findings have forced Zimbabwean authorities to step up efforts to stop the practice that has forced thousands of girls in the Marange, Odzi and Buhera districts of Manicaland to drop out of school.

Early marriage affects education

Although current data is not available, statistics from the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture district office reveal that out of the 10,000 girls who enrolled in Form One in the Marange district in 2000, only about a third completed Form Four in 2003.

 ”Those who dropped out became wives, with a small number dropping out because they could not afford the fees,” said a senior district education officer who did not want to be named.

School dropouts Most girls stop schooling in July when the sect celebrates Passover, a religious festivity during which marriage ceremonies take place. Gideon Mombeshora, a sect member, indicated that most men in the church prefer to marry under-age girls because it is easier to control them.

“Most men want to get married to docile women. The younger the bride the more chances for dominance for the man,” he said. He further explained the sect strongly believes in the practice of under-age brides: “

Although it is not in our church’s statutes that old men should marry under-age girls, the practice is deeply entrenched in our belief system.” Former senator Sheila Mahere said early marriages are a social ill that threatens to derail government’s bid to fulfil its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on increasing access to primary education as girls continue to drop out of the already constrained education system.

“Early marriages threaten national economic development, as bright and intelligent girls are forced out of school to become cheap labour and child bearers in their homesteads. Most of the girls become farm labourers on their husbands’ farms,” she said. The Union for the Development of Apostolic Churches in

Zimbabwe-Africa (UDA-CIZA), a coalition of 160 apostolic sects in Zimbabwe, said tries to raise awareness among apostolic sect leaders of the dangers of early marriages.

But in most cases, it faces serious resistance. “The police has been the biggest let down in early forced child marriages as they have continued to turn a blind eye to these crimes,” explain UDA-CIZA programme manager Edson Tsvakai. “We sometimes report some of our members to the police for these crimes but there have been very few successful prosecutions, largely because police view these cases as not serious and because some of the sect leaders are highly networked with the authorities.”

Serious resistance In 2007, the Harare-based Girl Child Network, rescued an 11-year-old girl who had been married off to a 44-year-old man in Buhera. The man was successfully prosecuted and sentenced to six months in jail.

However, shortly thereafter, the sentence was suspended and the girl had to live in a safe house because the unrepentant husband continued to claim her as his wife. Caroline Nyamayemombe, gender officer at the United Nations Population and Development Agency (UNFPA) country office in Harare, says studies have confirmed that teenage pregnancy is on the increase in Zimbabwe and a leading cause of maternal mortality. “Young girls are married off to men often older than their own fathers. This scenario has significantly contributed to pregnancy complications in teenage mothers. These harmful cultural practices are rampant in some districts in the country,” she explained.

Nyamayemombe said apart from religious beliefs, poverty is one of the key reasons for early marriages, as UNFPA data have shown that about 80 percent of pregnant teenagers come from poor families.

Young girls prepare for marriage

“Single adolescent girls who become pregnant are more likely to drop out of school, thus compromising their future earning capacity and becoming more likely to end in poverty. Maternal mortality and mortality from HIV/AIDS related causes become a reality for these girls and often lead or exacerbate poverty,” she added.

HIV /AIDS destroys families

A pregnant teenager faces the risk of immature uterine muscles and mucous membranes that pose serious danger and a high risk of a ruptured uterus in cases of prolonged labour.

Virgins forced into Marriage to “Appease” Evil Spirits

Three years after being seized from their families and forced to marry and have sex with adult men in a Shona ritual to appease an avenging spirit, five teenagers are facing a dismal reality.

The girls from Honde Valley in Manicaland had to drop out of school, become under-age wives and mothers and live an impoverished life as vegetable vendors to contribute to their new families’ household income.

In 1999, Felicitas Nyakama, Nesta Maromo, Juliet Muranganwa, Precious Maboreke and Perseverance Ndarangwa, who were then between the ages of seven and 15, were handed over by their parents to the family of Gibson Kupemba as payment for the man’s murder. The girls’ relatives killed Kupemba to prepare muti, traditional medicine, which is sometimes made from body parts.

According to traditional belief, a murderer’s relatives need to appease a dead person’s spirit with virgin girls, sometimes as young as six years old. The virgin has to live with the murdered person’s family, no matter her age. When she reaches puberty, she is made the wife of one of the male members of her new family.

Culture and religion is part of us

Kupemba’s grandson Gibson (junior) said his grandfather appeared to him in his sleep, demanding a virgin girl as compensation from each family involved in his murder. He insists the girls were not forced to offer themselves, but it was their personal choice to rescue their families from an evil spirit.

“They came here to confess on their own volition. Each girl must be accompanied by 22 heads of cattle,” said 28-year-old Kupemba junior, who married Precious Maboreke in 1999, when she was 15 years old. They have three children.

While five girls have already been pledged to the Kupembas, Kupemba junior says his family still demands twelve more virgins to avenge his grandfather’s death.

Culture and religion is part of us

Kuripa ngozi, or virgin pledging, is a punishable offence under Zimbabwe’s Domestic Violence Act, the practice is rampant throughout the country but no perpetrator has ever been prosecuted.

The saga of the five girls began in 1995, the year Kupemba was murdered by four local grocery shop owners with the help of 13 other villagers. Kupemba’s mutilated, decomposing body was found discarded in a dry riverbed.

Spirits welcome our dancing

Some time later, locals say, Kupemba’s spirit started causing sudden ailments and deaths in the families involved, resulting in some of them confessing to killing him. The shop owners admitted to having chopped off his private parts, little fingers, tongue and a patch of hair for the preparation of traditional medicines to boost their businesses.

Despite the confessions, no arrests were made, and Kupemba’s relatives allege the shop owners bought the police’s silence.

To appease the dead man’s spirit, the families handed over the first five virgins to the Kupemba family from 1999 onwards, but the process was stalled in 2006 when children’s rights organisation Girl Child Network (GCN) compelled the police and the Department of Social Welfare to investigate the matter and return the girls to their families.

But shortly thereafter, investigations were put on ice. Headman Samanga of Honde Valley told IPS he pulled out of the Kupemba case, as all involved families had accused him of preventing them from resolving private, domestic affairs.

Great Zimbabwe

“In this area, people strongly believe kuripa ngozi can only be settled by offering a virgin girl. I was the lone voice against the practice, and it was soon drowned. The families believed I was hindering their efforts to settle their transgressions,” he explained.

Eventually, the police, which had rescued four of the girls from the Kupemba family and put them under the custody of GCN, ordered GCN to send the girls back to their families, who returned them to the Kupembas.

Only the mother of one of the girls, Anna Ndarangwa, says she tried to rescue her daughter from the ritual. “I had a heated argument with the Kupembas,” she said, but did not manage to take her daughter home.

Ndarangwa believes the girls were brainwashed into believing that the health and well-being of their families were dependent on their personal sacrifice. “It was like something was upon them. I don’t want my daughter to pay for a crime she did not commit. I will die fighting for her,” she declared.

Afraid to talk to the media, all five refused to be interviewed.

The impact of New Media

Wits University 

Online Journalism Assignment

Student: Ntandoyenkosi Ncube

Definition:  New media is Online and digital ways of send, receiving and manipulating information. It came with emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies. It takes advantage of interactive digital media, such as the Internet, as opposed to traditional media such as print and television.

 

It is digital revolution of information dissemination.

“We didn’t think it was important. It was a serious misjudgment…We thought that the newspapers, the print media, the television were important but young people were looking at test messages and blogs’’, commented former Malaysia Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad on the BN loss in the general elections 

He concluded by admitting that the influence of new media “was painful’’.

The success of US President Barack Obama is an example of a politician who utilised new media in order to motivate masses of people to attend rallies and show support for him online. His rival, John McCain did not even have a new media strategy (as far as I know).

The Sunday Morning Herald journalist Ruth Pollard during my interview with her said-“For journalists, the future is new media. We either embrace it or our profession dies. We can no longer say that newspaper reporting or television and radio reporting is the only pure way of reporting – this is no longer true. Great, groundbreaking journalism is happening online and unless professional journalists who are trained and educated in the legal and ethical minefield of reporting take up space on online news sites, we will be simply leaving that space to the untrained bloggers and “citizen journalists” who have none of the ethics, training and editorial support that comes with a proper newsroom.

 New media provides professional journalists with many new ways of telling a story and connecting with our readers and viewers. We should see this as an opportunity, not as a threat. Our online news reports can use audio, video and photographs of the experts we quote and the talent we use, bringing a human face to our stories and allowing our readers and viewers to see a new dimension to our reporting.”

Looking at new media, it is easy to see that there are some powerful forces driving change across our cultural, our social and even our political landscapes.

With the new media emerging it has come clear that: There is a struggle to revise the social and legal norms especially in relation to intellectual property. Experts are coming under increasing pressure from new voices who are adopters of new technology. New organisations are emerging to deal with the social, cultural and political package of lives. The concepts of identity and community are transformed. New forms of language come into being.

The Impact of New Media considers the influence of digital revolution and how technological forms such as computers, online courses and interactive material change the evaluation of news writing and social and human character.

It takes a stance on how the advent innovative communication gadgets and systems has revolutionised the mind of the old and the young generation.

It takes a look on how the old standards of journalism and media have responded, benefited or been affected the modern technology.

It takes a reading on how professional journalists and ordinary individuals have reacted to new technology in terms of disseminating news and information.

Undisputed is the fact that new media has colossal impact to the mainstream media and global village since it is technology based and it’s all about the message, not the medium and it doesn’t have standards.

It has both positive negative impacts media and social live. 

New communications technology has become a sort of global town hall and has played a part in sharing information and important news otherwise inaccessible through mainstream journalism. It really has given people an opportunity not just to get information but also to share information.

New media has made people to be part of an exchange of information. It engages audiences and really listens to them.

It makes news and information moved at unblockable wave and revolves the world to a tin single village.

Now everyone with access to digital camera, computer and internet is now a “journalist’, can – upload content and publish on any of the several available sites, on own blog or send to a newsroom of choice.

With the advent of new media professional journalism looks “unshaken” but at danger.  Common journalisms principals like fairness, objectivity, ethics standards are at risk.

Enforcing ethics and how to tell a growing crowd of non-journalists to abide with these ethics has become ungovernable.

The standards of checking and double-check stories before sending story is vulnerable to new media.

Taking advantage of new media-non journalist personals are now “involved by blogging”, manipulating and abusing, rumors, gossip and hearsays.

Using new media individuals and journalists are creating their own blogs and profiles and generating unique audiences to their sites. It takes less than 20 minutes to teach an individual to open and manage his/her own blog.

Media professionals have mixed feelings on the impact of blogs and social media on reporting but I have a strong feeling they positively impact editorial direction and diversity of reporting, but have a negative impact on quality and accuracy.

New media is changing the gathering, editing, packaging, dissemination and are re-shaping information in a way that was never have imagined possible. One can write and edit from anywhere. By the use of the new media news organisation sub editors do not need to be in the newsroom always.

 Omnicom Company and media distribution agency Marketwire interviewed 451 reporters in April last year and revealed journalists have a love-hate relationship with new media. The research proves that 77% of political reporters and 53% of lifestyle reporters said new media had a negative impact on tone.

More than two-thirds (67%) of lifestyle reporters responded that social media had a negative impact on the accuracy of reporting, and 64% said it had a negative impact on quality.

Educators are exposed to many questions than answers when it comes to new media. The new technologies make it easier for people to get information, but does this mean they are really better informed? Are they getting the quality of the surge of information that the new technologies facilitate? This always remains lingering without best answer.

New media readers must be exceptionally cautious about what you read on the web. Where did it come from? What are the motivations of whoever put it there? Can I trust that it’s independent? Can I find it from more than one source?

The danger is that once something is on the internet it spreads fast that expected otherwise by its author. 

Although people might criticize the “mainstream media” – newspapers, radio and television as old – you do generally know that news that appears there is being carefully done, edited and fact-checked.

New media facilitates have already taken a major role as an information resource today. Computer technologies such as hypertext and the Internet remove the geographical constrains of print media and allow for a new method of distributing and reading documents.

One of the most important advantages of the new media (computer) over print media is (these) hypertext and hyperlinks.

Hyperlinks not only can help provide informative context to information within a story, they also can help keep a story alive long after its original publication.

It helps readers to branch off and click through to other, more detailed supporting content depending upon a reader’s of interest.

Almost all journalism refers to other source, but online a writer often has the ability to link readers directly to those supporting source.

When the concept of hypertext is applied to the Internet, the reader is still following his interests, but on a global computer network. The geographical location of a document is no longer relevant: the reader may browse documents archived in Africa or Europe and elsewhere in the world that are thematically linked together with hypertext.

Readers and researchers will benefit from networked hypertext, as they must often travel to distant libraries for information.

Information on the Internet is easily accessible, but it is extremely transient. A document on the Internet can be copied, changed, or deleted forever very easily, while a book cannot be revised without reprinting and rebinding a new copy.

On the Internet, one person’s document can be altered and republished by another, and older revisions of documents are rarely saved. This brings up questions of copyright law, which is a great deal harder to enforce on the global Internet than with print media

If the traditional medium recognize and embrace these changes, they can actually thrive in the era of digital journalism. Traditional medium often have a trusted brand, so when you read something from a local newspaper in your country on line you may trust it more than something that comes from a less well-known source.

But traditional media have to become more relevant to people who prefer digital journalism. The traditional media that thrive will be those that embrace these new techniques without giving up the quality journalism they are known for.

New technology has definitely provided people way to share our feelings, our thoughts with others. 

In Zimbabwe and many other parts of the world when government banned mainstream and ‘mainstream” independent medium and imposed emergency in the country, people began to comment on their blogs because only news channels were banned but obviously government couldn’t ban the websites as there are millions of bloggers in the country and each of them runs more than one blog.

In a democracy system, the rights to criticize government without interference regarded as fundamental principal of freedom of speech and this is jurisdictions use by bloggers to fully utilize the new media due to less censorship.

Political Blogs are unique in the sense that they do not fall under a collective umbrella of some media tycoons or political influence such as Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch or our country’s political pressures. Each blog represents the voice of an individual with no queen in the hive acting as central command.

The existence of Internet has turned it into a political force by itself. According to University Malaya Media Department lecturer, Dr Abu Hassan Hasbullah, his research shows that 70% of the recent general election results were influence by information in political blogs.

Prominent socio-political bloggers, Ahiruddin Attan claimed the blogs ability to influence the people’s minds depends on the bloggers credibility.

It is believed that United States president Barrack Obama won election by influencing people using new media.

June Tan and Zawawi Ibrahim (2008) assert that, Blogs have two potential roles to play in democratization. The first is to facilitate the civil liberties of society as a whole and second is to help in framing the discourse and setting the agenda for public policy-making. Those marginalized by the mainstream media have also taken to blogging as it offers them an unprecedented avenue to be heard.

Raja Petra Kamaruddin, administrator of widely-read web portal Malaysia-Today, state that his website thrived on information disclosed by informants within the ruling party because of political rivalry and infighting. Meanwhile Jeff Ooi confirms that he gets “insider” scoops from people within media organizations that they “cannot publish”.

According to University Malaya Media Department lecturer, Dr Abu Hassan Hasbullah, his research shows that 70% of the recent general election results were influence by information in political blogs.

Prominent socio-political bloggers, Ahiruddin Attan claimed the blogs ability to influence the people’s minds depends on the bloggers credibility.

This proves that the new media have made an impact in the good governance processes.

New is even more important in countries where the government controls the traditional media. Using these new techniques can actually bring about change that wouldn’t be possible only with traditional media

People not only Journalists embrace these new technologies to increase the ways in which they can tell stories, to expand the audience and to bring audiences into the process as providers of news, not just as consumers of it.

By doing that both journalists and new media takers can play greater role in holding governments accountable to the people that elected them.

People are using new media tools to hold responsible authorities accountable for their actions in countries where there in no good governance.

For example, Wael Abbas the first blogger to win our prestigious Knight International Journalism Award and others like him in Egypt have put information, including video captured on cell phones in their blogs that other media have been reluctant to report on — police brutality, election fraud and other evils.

Blog posts have had an impact, such as police officers being arrested for brutally torturing people. This might never have happened without new technology.

The danger of the new media is that everyone is trying to be the first to get information out on the web. The web tends to be a place where opinion is expressed freely, sometimes expressed very harshly. People often post some very hateful speech on the web, stuff that wouldn’t get into mainstream media.

The fact that every second mater with new media is making some journalists and media organizations to be less careful. Bad information gets out on the web. The journalist must be sure that they are maintaining the same quality control standards as before even with the pressure to be first on the web.

New media has negative impact on children. There is a significant relationship between time devoted to new media such as television, music, movies and internet on a variety of health or behavioral change on the lives of children and adolescents.

While there are many benefits of new media there are clearly disadvantages if children spend too much time with machines that generate images, and sound and not enough time with people, engaging in real relationships, exploring their physical world, playing, listening to stories and engaging in ways that stimulate them in other ways.

Findings by National Institute Health and Yale University are worrying. 83% of studies found a relationship with obesity. 88% found a relationship to sexual behaviour. 75% found a relationship to drug use. 80% found a relationship to alcohol use. 88% found a relationship to tobacco use. 69% found a relationship to ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)

The results clearly show that there is a strong correlation between media exposure and long-term negative health and behavior effects to children.

NIH findings reveals that excessive exposure to media like television, video games and computers, can actually change the activity and ‘shape’ of the brain as well as slowing down activity
It’s important to keep stressing that new media has many benefits and that while excessive use can be a problem, it can also have benefits. For example, one interesting study at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found that computer use for older people (aged 55-76) might even increase brain function for some. 

However research proves that too much television, gaming or computer use can be harmful for children.

While there are wonderful benefits from new media, research is showing us that over-use can be harmful for children.

There is a real danger that as parents lives become more busy and complicated that we will allow new media to fill spaces that previously would have been filled by family interaction. We should not allow this to happen if we value the wellbeing of our children and the quality of the relationship that we have with them.

REFGERENCE://

Ruth Pollard Sydney Morning Herald Journalist

NPF Producer Douglas Hopper

Zambia Daily Mail Journalist Violet Nakamba Mengo

Knight Digital Media centre

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070920niles/

International Centre for Journalists www.icfj.org

Independent Journalism Handbook: http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/journalism/index.htm

http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2008/January/20080122152242xjsnommis0.7352411.html#ixzz0KeqayTH8&D

Multmedia feature story on Global Financial Crisis

This year it surfaced “beyond doubts” that the global financial crisis, nevertheless it started off in the United States’ Wall Street has distressed the developing countries exceptionally bad.

South Africa – regional economic power house has confirmed this ‘beyond doubts’, said Genetic investment senior economist Munodawafa Mhuka.

Recession is commonly defined as being two quarters of negative growth.

The South African economy has gone into recession for the first time since 1992, following a sharp slowdown in the manufacturing and mining sectors

Victor Polikarpov, executive secretary of the Russia-South Africa Business Council said the global economic crisis is pushing countries in regions with emerging markets, such as Russia and South Africa, to together move beyond the dollar-based economic model. Given their politico-economic similarities, these two countries should build on opportunities to share expertise and technology.

South Africa President Jacob Zuma ready to fight poverty head-on

Africa’s biggest economy contracted at an annualised rate of 6.4% between January and March, compared with the same period a year earlier. It was the biggest decline since 1984 and followed an annualised 1.8% fall in the previous three months.

Mhuka said the global financial crisis is bullying to set back the achievements gained over the past decades in terms of poverty mitigation and achievement of the millennium development goals by developing countries.

Because of global crisis in Africa and world wide hundreds of household breadwinner have lost employment and have been pressed back into dearth.

“The shock is predominantly ruthless in developing countries because of quite bulky concentration of poor and vulnerable people combined with a general lack of social security system and limited capabilities of the governments to take care of the affected

“It’s far worse than we expected,” said Elna Moolman, economist at Barnard Jacobs Mellet. “It confirms the recession in the economy and certainly increases concerns about overall growth for 2009, given such a bad start for the year.”

Unemployment among young South Africans is suspended at 30 percent, shooting up to over 60 percent for youths in their late teens and early twenties.

According to a 2008 report by the Centre for Development Enterprise (CDE), a conservative think tank that researches the effect of poverty and unemployment on South Africa’s economic growth rate, 65 percent of the four million youths between 15 and 24 that were available for a job in 2005, were unemployed.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi meets Labour rights groups!! Has raised concerns over jobs losses.

Pre-recession figures by the state-owned Human Sciences Research Council furthermore show that about 30 percent of youths between 25 and 34 are jobless.
A financial catastrophe of such magnitude obviously needed a global response even though the national governments across the world have been adopting fiscal stimulus packages to revive demand depending upon their capacities.

The international community has responded to it in a spirit of cooperation and to contain further deepening of the crisis.

Statistics South Africa (SSA), which calculated the latest figures, said the slowdown in manufacturing and the mining and quarrying sector had been primarily responsible for the contraction.

Mining firms have been hit by falling demand for their products as a result of the global economic slowdown.

The government has predicted that there will be another quarter of negative growth to come before the economy recovers.

“Looking ahead, we expect another quarterly contraction for the second quarter, but this is expected to be smaller,” said National Treasury Director General Lesetja Kganyago.
The UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development was held on 24-26 June 2009 with leaders and ministers of many countries and adopted an outcome document containing some proposals for addressing the concerns of developing countries, specially the poorer and smaller ones not represented in G-20.

Labour rights groups say the global financial crisis has forced Africa companies to lay off thousands of workers, and provided cover for firms to dodge their legal and financial obligations to their workers.

” A rising phenomenon of business owners exploiting the global financial crisis as an opportunity to dismiss employees without paying them their legal financial rights…or to violate the rights of workers,” according to a study by the Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) published Jun. 1.

The global meltdown has had calamitous consequences on Africa and other developing countries.

Cairo parliamentary report released in March revealed that gross domestic production (GDP) growth fell to 4.1 percent in the last quarter of 2008, from 7.2 percent during the previous fiscal year.

Africa fashion manufacturing industry heavily affected by this global recession has launched Africa fashion deliberated at fighting the problem to the world while contributing to the realisation of Africa renaissance.

AFI chairperson Precious Moloi-Motsepe said African Fashion Week would benefit African textile industry, inter African trade as well as capitalise on global interest.

AFI chairperson Precious Moloi-Motsepe says African Fashion Week benefits inter African trade as well as capitalise on global interest.

“Inter-African trade is an underexploited source of growth for Africa whose share of global trade is only 2 percent. In 2006, only 16% of South Africa’s exports were destined for the continent, yet it is widely acknowledged that increased inter-African trade is a way to improve the economic environment of the continent and establish an economic infrastructure that will attract more capital investment.”, Motsepe added.

“Our mandate has jobs at its heart: the quality of jobs and the quantity of jobs, more jobs and better jobs, as the best means to combat poverty and social disintegration. Why does a trade union devote time and energy to fashion promotion?” posed former Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) general Secretary now South Africa Minister of Economic Development Ebrahim Patel

“Fashion is a vehicle to that goal. Behind the fun, the glamour, the images, there is a serious business and a major employment opportunity and reality.” he explained.
Companies suffering losses began restructuring and retrenching staff in late 2008. The first wave of layoffs and cutbacks targeted temporary staff and factory workers, among the lowest paid in the country. Over 100,000 workers were laid off during the six months ending March 2009, according to a senior official.

Retrenched workers say that managers pressured them into early retirement, or dismissed them without providing due severance packages.

Men at work. The construction industry has been one of the first to suffer from the global financial crisis, with local firms laying off workers

CTUWS reports widespread deterioration of working conditions among retained staff in the public and private sectors.

The NGO has documented cases of company managers altering contracts or forcing workers to sign resignation notices as a condition for their continued employment. Firms have also slashed salaries and bonuses, withdrawn benefits, or transferred workers to lower-paying positions.

“The company cut our salary by 30 percent,” says Tafara Midzi, a cleaner at Kine Centre in Johannesburg. “We are forced to work longer hours, and they use any excuse to deduct from our pay. But if we open our mouths, they tell us about the global financial crisis and say we should be lucky we still have jobs.”

Civic society meets over constitution making

Zimbabwean civic society groups will this weekend meet in Harare to decide on how best they can participate in the constitution making process. The meeting comes amid serious divisions within the broad movement of the civic groups.

Lovemore Madhuku NCA Chairman

“This convention will focus on developing a robust, meaningful and well co-ordinated civic society engagement with the constitution making process,“ said Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC) and the National Association of NGOs (NANGO) who are orgainising the event in a joint press statement issued Thursday.

A total of 2000 delegates draw from 234 civic organisations are expected to attend the conference which starts on Friday The civic society organisations are deeply divided on how best to approach the constitution making process.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and constitutional lobby group National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) have expressed reservations over the whole process. “We are not attending the conference. NANGO and Crisis have no mandate to take the lead in this constitutional issue, the NCA is the specific organisation to take the lead but we are not going to stand in their way,“ said Wellington Chibhebhe, ZCTU secretary general.

The two organisations are opposed to the use of the Kariba Draft, negotiated between MDC and ZANU PF as the basis upon which a new constitution will be crafted. Article 6 of the global political agreement (GPA) signed by the country’s three main political parties last September provides for the drafting of a people-driven constitution. The draft constitution would be put before the electorate in a referendum expected in July next year and if approved by Zimbabweans will then be brought before Parliament for enactment.

 Once a new constitution is in place, the power-sharing government is expected to then call fresh parliamentary, presidential and local government elections. Zimbabweans hope a new constitution to replace the one inked in 1979 at the Lancaster House talks in London would whittle the president’s powers, strengthen the role of Parliament and guarantee civil liberties and political freedoms. The existing constitution has been amended 19 times since the country’s independence in 1980 and critics say the changes have only helped to entrench President Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF’s stranglehold on power.

Constitution warrior demands a people driven constitution

Parliament is expected to soon convene all-stakeholders conference to discuss the constitution. Already teams drawn from the 25-member parliamentary constitutional committee are currently conducting consultations around the country

“Ensure full implementation of unity govt pact”

The Solidarity Peace Trust (SPT) on Tuesday called on SADC and the African Union (AU) to ensure that Zimbabwe’s power-sharing agreement is fully implemented to guarantee human rights in the troubled southern African country. 

The South African-based SPT – which brings together churches in southern Africa and other organisations involved in campaigning for human rights, freedom and democracy in the region – also called on Zimbabwean civic groups to discuss the impact of sanctions on the country.

PM Tsvangirai meets US present during money hunt tour to west

“Strong steps must be taken by the guarantors of the GPA (Global Political Agreement)– SADC and the AU – to ensure that the democratic and human rights reforms of the GPA are implemented with greater speed,” SPT research director Brian Raftopolous said at a launch of two reports in Johannesburg.

The SPT reports are entitled: “Walking a thin line: The political and humanitarian challenges facing Zimbabwe’s GPA leadership – and its ordinary citizens”; and “Gone to Egoli: Economic survival strategies in Matabeleland”.

“The continued abrogation of the elements of the GPA by the ruling party must come under censure,” Raftopolous said.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) brokered last September’s power-sharing agreement between Zimbabwean political rivals President Robert Mugabe of ZANU PF party and Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that led to formation of a unity government in February.

Tsvangirai gives handshake to US president

The MDC has said it is unhappy with ZANU PF’s refusal to finalise outstanding issues from the GPA, among them Mugabe’s unilateral reappointment of central bank governor Gideon Gono and appointment of Attorney General Johannes Tomana.

“They set up an agreement that must be reviewed in six months; they have a responsibility on this matter. We have to take it back to them as a body that is responsible. We have to refer the mater back to them . . . to who else should we refer this issue?” Raftopolous said.

Prime Minister Tsvangirai , who returned on Monday from a three-week tour of the United States and European capitals appealing for support for the unity government said early this month that his MDC party is expecting regional leaders to meet to discuss problems bedeviling the power-sharing government.

However the SPT director said that sanctions imposed by Western countries against Mugabe and his ZANU PF party inner circle must be scrapped for the coalition government in Zimbabwe to work.

Raftopolous urged Zimbabwean civic groups to come together and debate the impact of sanctions on the country.

 “Civic society does not have a clear position when it comes to sanctions . . . We haven’t had a proper debate on sanctions as civic organisations in Zimbabwe. I am saying let’s debate it . . . it’s a public policy issue lets debate it,” he said.

“We need to talk about the role sanctions are playing in the country, will sustained sanctions help to deal with outstanding issues. I can’t see any strategic link between these sanctions and outstanding issues.”

The US and European Union allies have promised more humanitarian support for Zimbabwe but continue to hold back on direct financial support, saying Harare must implement more reforms and uphold human rights.

SPT said the international donor community must complement its humanitarian efforts in Zimbabwe by direct financial assistance to the unity government, adding that conditions for support needed to be aligned to the milestones set by Harare deriving from the GPA.

“The current humanitarian interventions must be complemented by key developmental support in order to assist in developing the material basis for a national reconciliation process in Zimbabwe,” said SPT chairman Bishop Rubin Phillip, adding: “Conditions for international support must be based on the benchmarks set by the transitional government itself, which must in turn be based on the central democratic demands of the GPA.”

President undermines MDC

Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe’s former opposition party says it is considering “disengagement” from the unity government, but stopped short of withdrawing from its partnership with President Robert Mugabe.

The Movement for Democratic Change complains about continued harassment of Mugabe’s opponents and disputes over his unilateral appointments of top officials.

MDC vice-President Thokozani Khupe says the latest problem came with Mugabe rescheduling Monday’s weekly Cabinet meeting because he was going to be out of town.

MDC Vice President Thokhozani Khupe

Khupe says that was a snub to her party’s leader, who should have chaired the meeting in Mugabe’s absence.

Khupe says her party will boycott the rescheduled Cabinet meeting but remains a part of the coalition. She says it is the MDC’s “constitutional right to consider disengagement

 

 

Mean while Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has defended his move to enter a power- sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe. He says they would succeed or fail together.

Khupe leader of MDC in parliament

 

Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Saturday defended his move to enter a power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe, saying they would succeed or fail together.

“Those who accept me have to accept Robert Mugabe…. If there is a problem, we go and fail together,” Tsvangirai told reporters in Johannesburg following a three-week tour to London, Washington, Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels and Paris.

“I don’t have to defend Mugabe’s past and position towards the West or other countries,” said the former opposition stalwart who challenged Mugabe in a bitterly disputed election last year before reaching an agreement with him.

“We are in this transition and this transition is working,” he added.

He also said his tour to drum up support for the “new” Zimbabwe was a success despite criticism from Western leaders of continued human rights abuses and he insisted that political and economic reforms were gathering pace.

“The reforms are not stopping, they are accelerating,” he said.

“I’m happy with the pace…. It has to take into consideration the local realities, the sensitivities. We have to navigate through a lot of problems.”

He has been ruling since 1980 and is still in power

The country’s unity government was formed on February 11 and tasked with steering Zimbabwe back to stability after disputed elections plunged the impoverished African state even deeper into crisis and world record inflation.

It has appealed for $8.3-billion to rebuild the shattered economy but the assistance has so far come in dribs and drabs
Tsvangirai’s tour – which saw the first official talks with the European Union in seven years – did not see big aid pledges and he was told repeatedly that Zimbabwe needed to improve its rights record and deepen reforms.

President Mugabe won election in a one man race and he calls himself Hitler.

Tsvangirai insisted during his overseas trip that Mugabe’s presence in power should not deter foreign governments from helping his country.

But in a sign of continuing mistrust, he was booed and shouted down by Zimbabwean exiles in London when he pleaded with them in a speech to come home.

 

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told Tsvangirai : “The international community remains concerned about the rule of law in Zimbabwe” and about security, media freedoms and respect for private property.

Zim denies human rights violations

The Zimbabwean government on Monday denied it was violating international regulations on conflict diamonds, as a Kimberley Process team started a probe of the country’s eastern Marange diamond fields.

Mining secretary Thankful Musukutwa said complaints against Zimbabwe for trading in rough diamonds and violating human rights were not true.

“Under the Kmberley Process Certificate Scheme (KPCS), conflict diamonds are rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict armies at undermining legitimate governments,” he said

Diamond diggers help themselves at Marange fields.

“There is no armed conflict or any involvement of a rebel army or movement in Zimbabwe; therefore Marange diamonds do not fall within KPCS definition of conflict diamonds.”

A Human Rights Watch report out Friday accused Zimbabwe’s armed forces of using torture and forced labour to control the Marange fields, saying more than 200 people had been killed last year.

Zimbabwe last week denied any killings by security forces.

“What we have in Marange are illegal panners who from time to time evade security forces and engage themselves in illegal digging and trading of diamonds,” said Musukutwa on Monday.

Police brutality condemned by UN and other human right watchdogs

The Kimberley team’s visit was announced on Friday after a three day conference in Namibia where chairman Bernard Esau said the group had no proof of rights violations in Marange but had noted the HRW report.

Musukutwa said Monday’s visit is the third by the scheme. “During the last two visits, they found Zimbabwe fully compliant with KPCS rules and regulations,” he said.

Human Rights Watch say solders kills over 200 in Zimbabwe

“In March this year, the chair of the KPCS visited Zimbabwe and toured the Marange and Murowa diamond fields. He again reported that the country was compliant to the KPCS regulations.”

Human Rights Watch wants the Kimberley Process to review and broaden the definition of “conflict diamonds” to include diamonds mined amid rights abuses.

The group believes some income from the fields has been funnelled to high-ranking ZANU-PF officials, the party of President Robert

GNU officials say police action illegal

Mugabe who joined Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in a unity government in February.

The Kimberley team is led by Liberian deputy mines minister Kpandel Fiya and includes members from the European Commission, World Diamond Council, US State Department, and the South African Diamond and Precious Metals regulator.

Under Kimberley, rough diamonds are sealed in tamper-resistant containers and required to have forgery-resistant, “conflict-free” certificates with unique serial numbers each time they cross an international border.

Team to probe Zimbabwe daimond fields abuses

A delegation from the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) arrived in Harare at the weekend on a mission to probe alleged human rights violations at the Marange diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe.

The arrival of the team on Saturday came a day after Human Rights Watch last Friday accused Zimbabwe’s army of conscripting children and adults as forced labour to mine diamonds at the Marange fields that are also know as Chiadzwa diamond fields.

The New York-based HRW accused the soldiers of beating and torturing villagers at Marange and urged the KPCS, which governs the international diamond industry, to urgently act to prevent gross human rights violations at the controversial Zimbabwean diamond fields.

Zimbabwe govt take over diamonds fields and kills miners

Zimbabwe Mines Minister Obert Mpofu – whose department has denied human rights violations at Marange – said an advance team from the KPCS was in the country and more officials from the diamond organisation were expected to arrive Monday.

“Some of the members of the advance party of the delegation arrived in the country on Saturday,” Mpofu said. “The rest of the delegation will arrive on Monday and they will go to Marange on an assessment mission.”

Blood diamond losses market

The KPCS delegation is expected to meet senior government ministers, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe officials including the governor Gideon Gono, senior army and police officers.

A deputy government minister from Liberia leads the KPCS delegation that also includes members of rights and civil society groups.

In a report titled, “Diamonds in the Rough: Human Rights Abuses in the Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe,” HRW narrated how, following the discovery of diamonds in Marange in June 2006, the police and army have used brutal force to control access to the diamond fields and to take over unlicensed diamond mining and trading.

Some income from the fields has been funnelled to high-level party members of ZANU PF, which is now part of a power-sharing government that urgently needs revenue as the country faces a dire economic crisis, the report said.

HRW said in February 2009 it conducted more than 100 one-on-one interviews with witnesses, local miners, police officers, soldiers, local community leaders, victims and relatives, medical staff, human rights lawyers, and activists in Harare, Mutare, and Marange district in eastern Zimbabwe who all recounted gross rights violations in Marange.

Those interviewed said that police officers, who were deployed in the fields from November 2006 to October 2008 to end illicit diamond smuggling, were in fact responsible for serious abuses – killings, torture, beatings, and harassment.

The report also details how during an army led drive to flush illegal dealers and miners from Marange codenamed Operation Hakudzokwi (No Return), army helicopters and soldiers on the ground would indiscriminately fire live ammunition and tear gas into the diamond fields and into surrounding villages in a bid to flush illegal miners.

At least 200 people are said to have been killed during the operation.

HRW says miners killed by police

Urging action to stop further abuses and more killings in Marange HRW said the KPCS should demand that action from the Zimbabwean authorities to ensure that all diamonds from Marange are lawfully mined, documented, and exported in compliance with KPCS standards.

It also called on the certification authority to urgently review and broaden the definition of “conflict diamonds” to include diamonds mined in the context of serious and systematic human rights abuses.

Exiles seek involvement in new constitution

THE South Africa based Zimbabwe Exiles Forum is mounting the first Diaspora Constitutional Reform initiative under the theme “Ensuring the inclusion of the Zimbabweans Diaspora in the constitution-making process” this Saturday in Johannesburg.

Gabriel Shumba human rights lawyer and ZEF director fights for exiles rights

ZEF director Gabriel Shumba said on Thursday that Minister of Constitutional Affairs Eric Matinenga and National Constitutional Assembly  (NCA) chairman Lovemore Madhuku and Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary general Wellington Chibhebhe will attend in conference.

Shumba said the conference aimed at engaging millions of Zimbabweans abroad in drafting the country’s new constitutional process co-organised by his organisation, the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), and Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA).

Zimbabwe this week started consultations on a new constitution expected to steer in a new period of democracy in Zimbabwe and lay the groundwork for free and fair elections in 18 to 24 months.

“There is no doubt that it is the Diaspora that prevented a humanitarian crisis of Dantean proportions in Zimbabwe through remittances in the past few years. There is also no doubt whatsoever that the Diaspora is an indispensable player in the reconstruction of Zimbabwe in whatever form.” Shumba said

Shumba expressed fear that over 4 million Zimbabweans outside the country have not been involved in the process and are in danger of being left out of the discussion

“We are therefore worried that there has been scant attention to the need for us to be involved in the Constitution-making process. We have burning issues that need to be acknowledged, including issues of citizenship and the Diaspora vote. The very fact that we are concerned indicates that we also have serious issues regarding the inclusivity of the process. This symposium is therefore aimed at arriving at a common position for all those of us who were forced out of the country”, he added.

The Global Political Agreement (GPA) of September 2008, entered into by Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), its smaller faction led by Arthur Mutambara and Zanu- (PF) approved the realities that Zimbabwe needs a new constitution.

Come back home if you want me to be your Prime Minster

This has resulted in the Government of National Unity in April setting up a 25-member Parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitution to facilitate the new attempt of creating a home-grown Constitution.

“The Diasporans, generally, were and are still at the receiving end of the harsh laws in Zimbabwe. The enforcements of some of these provisions compelled them to flee the country and are therefore very well positioned in terms of how they would want the constitution to be reformed, for the attainment of a democratic Zimbabwe, which seeks to address all the human security concerns. Again, they have first hand experience of how governments can adhere to democratic principles in their “adopted countries” and therefore have a clear picture of what it is they would want included in the constitution, said Peace and Development Platform Programme and Action for Conflict Transformation Manager Clever Chikwanda.

Since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has been operating under the Lancaster House Constitution negotiated in 1979 that has changed over 18 times.

 

Zim refugees at central Methodist church in Johannesburg sleeping on the floor and pavement head to toe

Some of the amendments to the Constititution have vested too much power in the executive arm of Government, with little or no checks and balances from the other organs.

“Our idea is to facilitate meaningful and effective Diaspora involvement in the crafting of a new Constitution for Zimbabwe, to tap into the Diaspora experience in host countries so as to enrich the Constitutional making process at home and to facilitate concept formulation for achieving an inclusive, homegrown process that takes into account the Diaspora concerns.” Shumba said

A government sponsored Draft Constitution was rejected in 2000

Zimbabweans are however not in agreement regarding process and content of the envisaged new constitution.