Zimbabwe: Picking up the pieces after Murambatsvina
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It is a year since the Zimbabwean government implemented Operation Murambatsvina - what it described “a crackdown against illegal housing and commercial activities”. But the process to "Drive out trash" as it were, went beyond clearing the slums and according to United Nations estimates, disrupted the lives of an estimated 2.5 million Zimbabweans.
It was women who were mostly affected: widows, pregnant and nursing mothers, mothers living with HIV/AIDS, single mothers, unemployed women and grandmothers caring for orphans. In conversation today, women invariably single out Murambatsvina as an event that profoundly impacted on their lives. They recount how they lost homes they had struggled to build and furnish; of how their tuck-shops and flea markets stalls were looted, leaving them destitute; of how overnight they found themselves sleeping in the open and then being moved from one location to the other while temperatures plummeted.
Ironically, neither government nor women’s organisations in Zimbabwe appear to have taken the time to establish the gendered impact and consequences of Operation Murambatsvina. Most reports and research findings published on the exercise to date make no specific reference to the impact it had on women. Without such information one can assume that the efforts undertaken by various humanitarian organisations to assisting the victims of Murambatsvina do not take into account the gendered nature of the campaign.
I recall how upset I was last June when I attended a meeting of clerics in Bulawayo who were trying to work out the logistics to help some of the affected families. For over three hours, the men of the cloth sat and discussed in good faith what was needed and how they would help the nearly 2 000 people (mostly women and children) they were housing in their churches. The need for blankets, food and medication were extensively discussed. As an observer I asked one of the clerics whether they had thought of providing sanitary towels for women. His reaction told me they had not. After much debate, the cleric was able to stand up and request that the meeting also add towels to the list of provisions to be sourced for the families.
This is a minor illustration, but one that in my view shows how Operation Murambatsvina has served to remind Zimbabwean women that they still have a long way to go towards getting their voices and concerns heard by the State and humanitarian groups.
Zimbabwean women are yet to see evidence to prove that when Operation Murambatsvina was being planned, their specific circumstances were taken into account. A year later, most ordinary Zimbabwean women still do not understand how the clean up exercise fulfilled government’s commitment to gender empowerment as outlined by it’s own National Gender Policy, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Declaration on Gender and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action. If anything, it appears that the exercise went against the spirit of these commitments.
Even more worrying is the fact that women’s groups seem not to ask crucial questions on behalf of the millions of women they represent. One critical question that begs an answer a year later is” “what reconstruction efforts have been put in place and what plans are in place to ensure that women benefit?” The women rendered homeless or who lost their livelihoods remain in the dark regarding reconstruction efforts.
They have little knowledge of how they can benefit from follow-up programmes such as Operation Garikai or Hlalani Kuhle. Some reports indicate that most women will not benefit from the housing project simply because they cannot afford to pay for the houses. This is because most of them were informal traders who were the major targets of Murambatsvina. As a result many have lost their source of income when their stock was destroyed or lost during the clamp down. Complicating matters even further, hyperinflation in Zimbabwe means that few have been able to raise enough money to restock and resume business.
Anecdotes of the suffering that Zimbabwean women are enduring because of Murambatsvina abound. What is still lacking a year later is action to help these women heal and pick up the pieces. My hope now is that as civil society commemorates Operation Murambtsvina, women will not be pushed to the background. I hope to see women’s groups lobbying and raising critical issues to allow women to move on with their lives after Murambatsvina.
Miriam Madziwa is a Zimbabwean writer working with civic organisations in Bulawayo. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.
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