sexual health and human rights in the african region - The ICHRP

time, the Zimbabwean Act is different from the South African Act in sensitizing
domestic violence legislation to harmful and abusive cultural practices. In this
connection, section 3(1) of the Zimbabwean Act includes within the ambit of
domestic violence ‘cultural or customary rites or practices that discriminate
against or degrade women’ including: forced virginity testing; female genital
mutilation; pledging of women or girls for purposes of appeasing spirits; forced
marriage; child marriage; forced wife inheritance; and sexual intercourse
between fathers-in-law and newly married daughters-in-law. 663 The powers of
police officers in relation to rendering assistance as well as arrest are similar to
the South African Act. The same applies to the powers of the court in relation to
a protection order.
[76] By way of a substantial departure from the South African Act, the Zimbabwean
Domestic Violence Act establishes administrative structures that are intended to
promote the efficacy of the Act as well as the systemic eradication of domestic
level in Zimbabwean society. In this connection, the Zimbabwean Act establishes
Anti-Domestic Violence Counselors 664 and an Anti-Domestic Violence Council. 665
[77] Anti-Domestic Violence Counsellors are conceived as panels comprising of social
welfare officers, members or employees of voluntary non-governmental
organizations concerned with the welfare of victims of domestic violence and
community leaders that are established under the Domestic Violence Act to carry
out the following functions:
(a) advising, counselling and mediating the solution of any problems in personal
relationships that are likely to lead or have led to the use of domestic violence;
(b) carrying out, upon the instruction of a court, investigations in relation to the
financial status of complainants and respondents;
(c) carrying out investigations and making arrangements for the accommodation of
the complainants prior to the issue of an interim protection order or protection
order;
(d) making immediate arrangements for the medical or other examination of a child
where there is a reasonable suspicion that he or she is a complainant;
(e) providing counselling to complainants and respondents;
(f) performing any other function which the Minister may assign to him or her for
the purposes of this Act. 666
An anti-domestic violence counsellor may, in carrying out his or her duties, seek the
assistance of any police officer. 667
663 Section 3(1)(l) ibid.
664 Section 15 ibid.
665 Section 16 ibid.
666 Section 15(2) ibid.
187