I was listening to a story on the Bradford murders on the BBC the other morning. One of the interviewees in the story stated that crimes like this happen disproportionately frequently to commercial sex workers because of the criminalisation of commercial sex work. Women in this profession are far more likely to be on the fringes of society, less protected by the communities around them, and less able to go to authorities for help when they need it. Because of this marginalisation, potential attackers are also more likely to think they can get away with it – that no one will follow up on these cases.

This resonated with an article a friend recently pointed me towards, on the Accelerating Prevention news service. The article pushes for the decriminalisation of sex work for these reasons:

• Sex work will not go away;
• There are many harms associated with sex work, but these can best be dealt with by other areas of criminal law or by non-legal interventions;
• Anything short of decriminalisation makes those harms worse, particularly to sex workers themselves; and
• Enforcing a sense of morality through the law is likely to generate other harmful immoralities.

The article goes on to argue for the legalisation of commercial sex work by advocating that “consensual sexual contact between two adults in private is legal.” As my friend rightly pointed out, one could use the same approach to decriminalise homosexuality.

The argument is essentially that people’s sex lives – so long as they don’t hurt anyone else in the process – are their own business, and the rest of us have no place trying to control them.

People will live lives differently from how other people might – or how other people might want them to. I might be compelled by choice, curiosity, DNA, personality, biology, nature, nurture or any other number of reasons to take actions you might not take. But, as long as I’m not hurting anybody in the process, is it your right to judge, condemn, or legislate my behaviour?

Ignoring the things that make us uncomfortable doesn’t make them go away. Secrets thrive in the dark, like mushrooms. If I’m shamed, or stigmatised, or legislated into keeping my behaviour hidden, it is far more likely that problems will fester. Let things into the light, where we can talk about them, disagree about them, share ideas and concerns and advice. And accept that if I’m not hurting anyone else, I have the right to be who I am, just as you do.

Populist as ever the MDC suddenly decides to condemn power cuts mainly because the world cup is happening soon and Zimbabweans will get right royally fucked off if they can’t watch all the games. So it seems like a good time to harness some support.

Seems like ZESA could actually help by keeping us in the dark during the world cup. Maybe we’ll finally see a “red shirt” style uprising like Simba Makoni suggested we need.

You can take our freedom away, but don’t mess with our soccer.

MDC condemns power outages Tuesday 01 June 2010

The MDC is seriously concerned by the continued power cuts that have inconvenienced citizens and virtually brought business to a standstill across the country. The continued power supply disruptions by Zesa have not only brought unbearable and unnecessary hardships on the ordinary people, but are a threat to industry at a critical moment in the revival of the country’s industrial sector.

The incessant and ceaseless power cuts have resulted in most commercial entities facing massive business losses and being forced to lay-off workers due to low production. The power utility’s load-shedding schedules are shambolic while the intermittent power supplies have damaged electrical gadgets in people’s homes and heavy duty equipment in our struggling manufacturing industries. The entire production sectors, including our farming, manufacturing and mining concerns have all been seriously affected by these power outages.

It is no wonder that the majority of Zimbabweans are wondering whether they will be able to watch the historic World Cup to be held in South Africa in less than two weeks time. It is shameful for Zesa to embarrass the nation and short-change citizens at such a historic moment for the country, the region and the continent. ZESA, which like any parastatal has been plagued by endemic corruption and colossal ineptitude, has short-changed innocent Zimbabweans who continue to receive astronomical power bills, even in cases where a household or a business premises would have had no access to power for a whole month.

This is daylight robbery by a parastatal that is rewarding its senior officials with hefty salaries and allowances for keeping the ordinary people in the dark. As a party, we restate our resolution of the national council of 16 May 2010, that we find unacceptable the charges being levied by public utilities. These charges are high and bear no reflection to a cost structure but rather to high wages and allowances that are being paid to senior management.

The MDC calls upon the Ministry of Energy and Power Development to urgently look into the state of affairs at Zesa with the hope of expeditiously making sure that Zimbabweans have access to electricity. Turn-around plans and astronomical bills have failed to address the issue and ordinary citizens continue to be short-changed every-day even though they are paying through the nose for a non-existent service.

The inclusive government should urgently look into these power outages as a matter of priority as they threaten the survival of the industries that we want revived for the benefit of the country and its citizens.  Zimbabweans want real change. They want dignity, prosperity, hope, security and freedom. Zimbabweans will never load-shed their demand for basic services.

MDC Information & Publicity Department

On Tuesday morning, June 1st, the police blocked public entry to Doon Estate in Msasa because a Chinese Delegation was visiting the sculpture garden housed in the same venue. People trying to get to the restaurant, as well as the coffee and curio shops were turned away and told to come back at 3pm.

This illustrates the kind of abuse of power and position that we have come to experience in Zimbabwe. The authorities showed a total lack of awareness, appreciation and respect for the business owners in this complex who consistently service the few tourists that still come to Zimbabwe, rather than infrequent “VIP” delegations.

The shop owners and business people in this complex already have to contend with power and water cuts – they shouldn’t have to add spontaneous closures on account of delegations to their list of challenges.

Email the Chinese Embassy in Harare (chinaemb-zw@mfa.gov.cn) and ask for their comments on this incident.

A while ago I was invited to go on a trip to Victoria Falls. A friend’s mother was visiting and the Falls is a Must See. So we booked a visit for Saturday through to Monday afternoon. We got to the airport in good time for the midday flight on Saturday and as soon as we sat down in the departure lounge an Air Zimbabwe representative sought us out to tell us that they had cancelled the return flight on Monday, so would we like to come back on Tuesday? Well, we have jobs, so Tuesday was pushing it a bit and we settled on Sunday afternoon, cutting an already short trip, even shorter.

The departure time of noon came and went. The plane was sitting on the tarmac outside the terminus in all its sooty glory, and much activity was happening onboard, but 1pm rolled around and we were still twiddling our thumbs waiting to go. At no point did an Air Zimbabwe representative tell us what was going on and why the flight was so delayed. Eventually, as our trip got even shorter we decided to re-book for the following weekend.

The majority of people waiting to board the flight were tourists presumably like us with activities planned in Vic Falls, which were being ballsed up by Air Zimbabwe.

Yesterday, my in-laws were booked on the 9am Air Zimbabwe flight to Gatwick. They got up at 5:30am to get to the airport for 6:30am. The plane finally left at midday because of technical difficulties.  Imagine the fatigue of these 80 year olds, and the missed connections and the buggared up pick-ups.

Sure, technical difficulties do occur but the majority of people flying Air Zimbabwe complain of delays.

The Zimbabwean authorities bemoan the lack of tourists visiting this country; and lately they’ve been cajoling 2010 football supporters to come sample Zimbabwe’s delightful tourist destinations, like Vic Falls. But the stark reality is that service organisations like Air Zimbabwe are not professional and deserve a major kick up the arse.

The formal sector of Zimbabwe is struggling to revive. Many people are surviving through informal and largely illegal means. Vending is an activity that has kept poor families alive and their children in school. Despite this important contribution to the social and economic wellbeing of the Zimbabwean, vending has always been a risky business.

On Friday 28 May 2010, Kubatana.net launched a vendor-wrapping sheet called “Ndeipi Msika“. The aim of this paper is to have the vendor community made aware of social issues that affect them, their relatives and friends. The majority of vendors are women; it is therefore no accident that the first wrapper contains significant coverage of women issues.

Vendors took advantage of the opportunity of meeting us to air pertinent issues, which they want addressed by authorities.

The hottest issue was the affordability, availability and accessibility of vendor licenses. The current annual charge for licenses is about US$150. Vendors complain that this amount is too much for them to afford given that their products give them a turnover of less than US$20 on a good day.

One vendor suggested that a system be introduced where vendors pay for their licenses on a monthly basis rather than the hefty once off payment. She further complained that the geographical coverage of the licenses is too small for a viable vending business.  She suggested that there be introduced a vendor license which covers the whole country so that vendors can easily follow the geographical demand of the goods that they offer.

Other vendors complained about shop managers who chase them away from places where they have been vending for the past 14 years or more. The vendor described the managers as overzealous people who forget that whenever thieves’ loot from their shops, vendors always help by chasing and catching the shoplifters. She added that the vendors often cover the gap when shops run out of stock of a given commodity, and thus the shopping centre does not loose its customers to other shopping centres. She concluded by reminding the shop managers that in business even competitors need each other.

Vendors also complained about the police behaviour. There is the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) on the one hand, and the Municipality police on the other. Of the two, licensed vendors prefer to deal with the municipality police whom they think understand them. They do not really understand the role of the ZRP in the vending business. They blame the ZRP for arresting, tormenting and demanding kickbacks. This, they said, puts unnecessary pressure on their business, which generally does not have a lot of profit.

The vendor wrapper was welcomed by a lot of vendors and they expressed hope that the wrapper will include information on their issues.

The Research and Advocacy Unit, in collaboration with IDASA (an African Democracy Institute), the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), and the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ) recently launched a report titled Women, Politics and the Zimbabwe crisis.

The report was the first of a set of findings from a survey taken in November and December 2009. The poll was conducted throughout Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces, and included 2158 individuals. Most of the women interviewed were from Harare, Manicaland, Mashonaland East and West, with the average age of the women being 38. Some of the women polled were located in the Diaspora, which is Botswana and South Africa.

The purpose of the survey was to gauge the opinions of women regarding four issues, namely: what women thought about elections; what women thought about violence; what they thought about peace and finally their thoughts on the Inclusive Government.

In general women believe that they should participate in politics. In comparison with previous Afrobarometer reports, this report found that an increasing number of women are voting, however they are still fewer than the total number of women eligible to vote. A small percentage of women thought that women should be involved in politics at all, or that they should only be involved in politics with the permission of their husbands.

With regard to elections and violence, the majority of women believed that violence was caused by political intolerance and the struggle for power. 68% of women said that they did not feel safe during the 2008 election period; 52% reported having experienced violence. Surprisingly, 9% of women from across the political divide said that violence during elections was acceptable. It is distressing to note that a significant number of women believe that violence and elections are inseparable because of the violence they have personally experienced over the last decade.

The report state that, in general, there was a greater frequency of violations reported at the hands of non-state agents. This corroborates the findings of several human rights reports over the past decade. Violations at the hands of non-state agents were twice as frequent as those at the hands of state agents. 3% of women reported that they had been subjected to sexual violence. Interestingly, the witnessing of rape was much more frequently reported that the actual experience of rape. It may be concluded that women in Zimbabwe are reluctant to talk about their personal experiences of rape. Credence is lent to this theory by the fact that Zimbabwean women in the Diaspora were more willing to report incidences of personal rape during elections.

Women were asked for their views on the Inclusive Government. 71% stated that Zimbabweans should have been consulted about the formation of the Inclusive Government; 43% felt that the new government did not represent the interests of women. The results of the report suggest that Zimbabwean women have significantly declining faith in the Inclusive Government compared with a previous Afrobarometer report. Apart from food security, education and health, the majority of women sampled expressed distrust in the Inclusive Government’s ability to deliver change. Popular support as noted by previous Afrobarometer surveys has significantly declined over the last 20 years. This report found that only 9% of those sampled expressed support for ZANU PF as compared to the 51% that expressed support for MDC-T. A significant number of respondents did not want to say where their party affiliations lay, indicating conditions of fear and intimidation.

In the discussion following the presentation, a few members from the floor feel that more needs to be done to help alleviate the situation of women in the country. One woman pointed out that NGOs were not doing very much to bring justice to women, with the Organ on National Healing and Reconciliation being largely felt to be redundant. It was also pointed out that very little research about the perpetrators of violence was being conducted by civic organisations, yet this information would be a necessary tool for addressing the root causes of violence. Among the criticisms of the report was that issues of patriarchy with regard to violence were not mentioned. It was noted that this is very critical in a culture that is buttressed by traditions that look at women as subordinate to men. Further, the report failed to identify the gender of the perpetrators, leading to the assumption that all the perpetrators were men. However, in some cases this was not so. It was reported during the discussion that women were also perpetrators of violence against women.