The Standard 8 June 2014

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6 The StandardJune 8 to 14 2014 News Apostolic women cowed by doctrine The issue has been politicised with people debating whether Ndanga’s council has the mandate to handle such matters as abuse of women and children Vapostori attack police at their shrine in Budiriro 2 in Harare. (file picture) PHYLLIS MBANJE AND MOSES MATENGA FEMALE members of the Johanne Masowe yeChishanu led by one Madzibaba Ishmael Mufani clap their hands, go through the motions and they can even produce award-winning drama on genderbased violence. But deep inside they keep frightening secrets. The placid expressions on their faces hide their harrowing tales and years of silent suffering that have helped in creating their own prison. The smiles on their faces are not a true reflection of their lives. For years they have been told that a woman’s place is behind her male counterpart and that even the Bible supports this stance. Their husbands carry out virginity tests on their daughters by inserting their fingers into the innocent girls’ private parts. But the women have remained silent. Their fear of violence or being ostracised by the only community they know consumes them so much that any outsider who makes attempts to “liberate” them is branded the devil’s advocate. They are “happy” in their sad and sorry existence and allow themselves to be dominated by the doctrine of their church. Any woman who wants to question the dictates of the church is said to be filled with the vile spirit of the “dark one” and should be exorcised before she contaminates others. “Contrary to what people think, these people are very intelligent and when we hold awareness meetings with them, they participate and actually condone human ACCZ president Johannes Ndanga rights abuse perpetrated against them — but behind closed doors the girl child suffers,” said the director of Women Action Group (WAG), Edna Masiyiwa. Masiyiwa said the female apostolic members have guarded their secrets so much that despite the numerous meetings highlighting issues like domestic violence and children’s rights, they still manage to hide the atrocious deeds away from the public glare. The sordid happenings in the church were however brought into the public domain two weeks ago when some of the members beat up anti-riot police at a shrine in Budiriro 2. Over 30 members of the sect have since appeared in court facing assault charges after the incident and are currently in police custody. The actual reasons for the banning of the Madzibaba Ishmael church may however, sadly be overshadowed by the drama surrounding the bashing of police in anti-riot gear by sect-members armed with sticks. The issue of the wanton abuse of women and children appears to have paled in the shadow of this drama. “Sadly, as police seek their revenge and as people cheer Madzibaba on, the real issues will be lost,” said one social media commentator. No police report has been made on the matter of abuse and yet children were allegedly being denied their right to education and health by the church. The sect leaders demanded that women who were not virgins when they got married compensate their husbands by finding virgin girls for them. “The multi-sectoral meeting we had with the police, Musasa Project [an NGO focused on gender equality] and the ministries of Primary and Secondary Education and Sport, Arts and Culture last Wednesday, resolved that the church be banned without delay as more than 400 children were not going to school because of the rules of the cult,” Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) president Johannes Ndanga said. Givemore Mahara, a social commentator said of the ongoing debate: “The debate has ceased to be about the rights of the children and women now. It has become politicised with people debating whether Ndanga’s council is fit to handle such matters or whether the police were supposed to be involved.” “In the process, fundamental issues will be lost but the bottom line is that although there is freedom of worship, it should not infringe on other freedoms like health, education and others,” Mahara said. Gunmen take students hostage at Iraq university South Africa President Jacob Zuma Zuma in hospital SOuTH Africa’s President Jacob Zuma was admitted to hospital for tests yesterday, the presidency said. “Yesterday President Zuma was advised to rest following a demanding election and transition programme to the new administration,” his spokesman Mac Maharaj said in a statement. “Doctors are satisfied with his condition.” Zuma was on Friday also ordered by the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) to take a break from his duty. The party would not say how long his break would last. —Sapa GuNMEN occupied a university in Iraq’s western province of Anbar yesterday, taking hundreds of students and their professors hostage on campus, security sources said. After fighting their way past guards overnight, the gunmen broke into Anbar university in the provincial capital Ramadi, parts of which have been held by anti-government tribal groups and insurgents since the start of the year. The attack on the university is the third brazen offensive in as many days by militants who have regained ground and momentum in Iraq over the past year and this week overran districts in two other cities. Security forces surrounded the university in Ramadi yesterday and exchanged fire with the militants, who had planted bombs behind them and were patrolling the rooftops with sniper rifles. Sources in Ramadi hospital said they had received the bodies of two people, one of them a student and the other a policeman. A professor trapped inside the physics department said some staff who live outside Ramadi had been spending the night at the university because it was the exam period. “We heard intense gunfire at about 4am. We thought it was the security forces coming to protect us but were surprised to see they were gunmen,” he told Reuters via telephone. “They forced us to go inside the rooms and now we cannot leave”. He was later able to escape along with 15 colleagues and pupils. “I brought some of my students’ exam papers in a nylon bag and, wearing my tie and suit, jumped the fence and am outside now,” he said. The identity of the assailants was not clear, but Ramadi is one of two cities in Anbar that were overrun at the start of the year by tribal and Sunni insurgents, including the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil). Security forces control central Ramadi, where the city council and other government offices are located, but the suburbs and outlying areas have shifted back and forth between of hit and run attacks by militants. —Reuters
Local News The Standard June 8 to 14 2014 7 Female prisoners’ dignity restored BY OUR STAFF Police abuse us: Sex workers BY OUR CORRESPONDENT SEX workers in Bulawayo have accused police officers of physical and verbal abuse upon arrest. Speaking at an Abammeli Lawyers for Human Rights workshop in the city on Friday, sex workers accused the police of insulting them and asking for sexual favours, as well as forcing them to do various chores at the police station while in custody. “Some members of the police usually ask for sex whilst holding us in the cells. If we refuse to sleep with them they verbally attack us by calling us names such as whores or prostitutes,” said a sex worker who only identified herself as Maziat. The Constitution states that any arrested person must be treated humanely with respect for their inherent dignity. Another participant, identified as Karen, said they were made to clean police holding cells and other infrastructure at the police stations where they would be held. The programmes coordinator of Abammeli, Tineyi Mukwewa said the actions of the police were not in tandem with the Bill of Rights, especially the provisions that speak about the right to human dignity. “Sex workers have rights and the police need to treat them as humanely as possible. They should not be degraded by any person or authority,” said Mukwewa. The act of selling or buying sex is not criminalised in Zimbabwe but the police have a tendency of carrying out various sting operations against women patronising bars and night clubs as well as those walking the streets at night accusing them of contravening Section 8 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform Law) Act, Chapter 9:23 (loitering for the purpose of prostitution). LAST week’s landmark Supreme Court ruling compelling authorities to allow female prisoners to keep their undergarments upon incarceration will help restore some dignity to women inmates whose rights were being violated by being denied basic necessities. The ruling was a result of efforts by the pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) since 2011. While detained at Harare Central remand prison, some female members of Woza came face-to-face with the grim reality of prison life which they later described as inhumane and degrading. Not only were they stripped of their undergarments, but they were also made to walk on top of human excreta as there were no ablution facilities for them to use. “We ended up smuggling in plastic papers that we used as shoes because people were just doing their toilet business everywhere because there were no toilets,” said Jenni Williams, co-director of Woza. The experience haunted the women long after they had left the prison cells. “It was horrible. All of us were crammed in a single cell which was not only filthy, but had a hole overflowing with faecal matter. People ended up just squatting and relieving themselves anywhere in the room,” she said. What was most degrading was that all of them did not have any undergarments, including those who were menstruating. Horrified by the conditions, Woza leaders petitioned the court through the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) demanding that government ensure that the holding cells met basic hygienic conditions. “The flushing toilets should be cordoned off from the main cell to ensure privacy. The holding cells at Harare Central Police Station should be cleaned daily with soap and detergents, and a good standard of hygiene should be maintained in the police holding cells,” reads the application. Following the rulings authorities are now required to provide clean water, mattresses, blankets and toilet paper to detainees at Harare Central prison. The women are also to keep their undergarments, a move which will restore one’s dignity. “We are pleased with the ruling because we did it for the ordinary woman on the streets and justice has been served,” said Williams. She however said the only challenge was that women now needed to stand up and point out to the police that there is now a provision that protects them. Zimbabwean women, like most women in developing countries, are largely docile and because of societal expectations and limited access to resources, will not speak out or stand up to authority, especially men. Countrywide the situation is basically the same and in 2005 Supreme Court Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku ruled that police cells at Matapi and Highlands police stations were “degrading and inhumane and unfit for holding criminal suspects.” Because of their biological nature, women are hardest hit when they are placed under conditions that do not have basic hygienic necessities including sanitary wear. There have been several calls for the government to supply female prisoners with sanitary wear which is currently a scarce commodity at prisons and yet the market is flooded with cheaper versions which cost no more than a dollar. Last year a report released by Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) and Zimbabwe Women Lawyers’ Association revealed that female prisoners continued to recycle sanitary wear and slept on dirty, lice-infested For the past 22 years, the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association has always noted with disturbing concern that there is violence and the abuse of the rights of women and children within the “sects” of the “Vapostori” church. Whilst the allegations would for the most years go unreported and have in most circumstances seemed hard to investigate from the position of an NGO, it is disturbing to note that indeed the allegations are true. The allegations of violence and abuse of women and children's rights having been there for decades where confirmed by recent events which saw “more than six riot police officers, journalists and members of the Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) seriously injured after rowdy members of an apostolic sect attacked them with knobkerries and stones in Harare's Budiriro suburb” as reported by The Herald of 3 June 2014. The reported incident is said to have happened after “ACCZ executive president Archbishop Johannes Ndanga announced that the church led by Madzibaba Ishemael Mufani had been banned from operating in Zimbabwe because it was violating the country's laws and that of Christianity by denying over 400 children of school going age access to education, severe abuse of church congregants and their families or relatives”. It is now further reported that the members of the apostolic sect arrested have no identity documents which also means that their children might not have identity documents. It is important for every Zimbabwean to know that there is no church or religion above the provisions of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. The Constitution shuns any violence against all Zimbabwean citizens including women stating in section 52 that every person has the right to freedom from all forms of violence both in public and private sectors. Further, all the rights in the Constitution are also children's rights as such children have a right to education regardless Defending Women Defending Rights With support from Jenni Williams linen stained with blood and urine. There are also reports that the prisoners use old newspapers or tissues as sanitary wear, a situation which can expose them to infections of the womb. ON VIOLENCE AND THE ABUSE OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN WITHIN THE “VAPOSTORI SECT” ZWLA'S PRESS STATEMENT of the religious inclinations of their parents, they have the right to human dignity, to personal security and to privacy which includes the right not to have their bodies abused by testing their virginity. Children have the right not to be married or given into marriage, forcefully or willingly until they are 18 years of age. The Constitution particularly protects children in section 81 stating that children have the right to be provided a birth certificate, to be protected from maltreatment and abuse, to health, shelter and nutrition. The Constitution by giving children the right to family and parental care mandates the parent to ensure that every child enjoys his/her Constitutional rights. If the parent is incapable of protecting the child or is responsible for the abuse of the child's right on the basis of religion or otherwise, the parent is guilty of violating the child's right and must be investigated This will ensure that prosecutions are done because the child is entitled to adequate protection by the Courts in particular the High Court which is the upper guardian of the child. ZWLA therefore recommends the following: The state should take its role of protecting the rights of women and children and initiate an investigation of various actions of religious sects with the view to prosecuting those who are abusing women and children's rights We also urge the public to appreciate the gravity of the offences which might be detrimental to the development of the girl child and subsequent development of the nation. We also call upon all heads of Christian denominations to ensure that doctrines in their various denominations are subject to the rule of law and the provisions of the Constitution. For 24 hour response to Gender Based Violence, call ZWLA hotlines on 0782 900 900 and 0776 736 873
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The Standard 8 June 2014

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