I’ve been following TechZim’s coverage of issues surrounding the registration of a .co.zw domain. The process is unnecessarily laborious and complicated and it opens up those who would register a Zimbabwean domain to exploitation by ISPs, who in many cases bundle their comparatively expensive hosting products with the domain registration. As a result a number of businesses and web portals register generic Top Level Domains (.com, .net. info etc). It is not possible to overstate the importance of hosting Zimbabwean business and content on the .co.zw domain space. That space is a national resource, and belongs to all Zimbabweans.

In an interview, founding editor of TechZim Limbikani Makani had this to say:

The big problem is that it’s all unclear. No one knows, and the few people that do know are the ISPs that do the registration. The truth is if you go to a registrar with your paperwork, they will register you. The problem is that they don’t make this information (registration requirements) available. Either they don’t have the resources, they don’t want to or they’re afraid. Afraid that if this becomes something that just anybody can do something negative might happen, or the resource that they’ve been feeding from might disappear, or it might get into the wrong hands. Because of that they’re afraid to just let go. I think they can let go. Is it too expensive? It’s actually not. ZISPA doesn’t charge the ISPs for domain registration at all. What they charge is a membership to ZIPSA which is $30, which is nothing to a big organisation like Utande or ZELCO. Unfortunately, there is not enough information out there about domain registration. The ZIPSA website has been updated in several years. ZISPA can immediately improve that. Secondly they can make the entire process simpler. They’re not making enough of an effort to make the informatio0n available to everyone.

Last week several Zimbabwean media sources reported the storming of a police station in Gweru by a crowd demanding to beat up three women suspects. The women allegedly had been sexually abusing men, and were arrested when they arrived at an accident scene asking to retrieve an estimated 30 condoms from a car that was involved. Reportedly, there is no legal basis for their arrest. Zimbabwean law does not recognise the rape of a man by a woman, and possession of used condoms is not illegal. In fact their continued detention based on suspicion of raping men is a violation of their constitutional rights. The women have only admitted to being sex workers.

Media outlets have been no less prejudiced on this matter than the police. Reportage of the case cannot be called unbiased, and could be termed salacious. One online publication even trawled Facebook, and published images of one of the suspects.

Comments on the Herald’s article pages include:

Ngavapiwe life sentence with hard labor, Izvezvi tichanzwa kuti they are out on bail and then they have gone into hiding! Please protect us and our children from such vampires
No bails just kills them

Speaking at the police station in Gweru one man is quoted as saying: ‘We are shocked with what is happening in our society where men are now being sexually-abused by women. But how can they make a living through such acts?’

And that’s exactly the point of the outrage. It is not that one human being sexually violated and exploited another human being. It is that women did this to men. Of the countless rape cases reported in the media, none, not even ones involving infants have sparked such an emotional reaction.

There is still a stiffer penalty for stock theft than for rape. Judges still hand down ten-year sentences to rapists and then suspend half of it for good behaviour. Never mind that in some cases the rape is premeditated, and accompanied by aggravated assault and threats. Sometimes the women and girls who are raped are married to their attacker. Yet there is no outrage. There are no elders protesting that this is not our culture and pleading for a return to sanity and traditional values. No outraged mothers and fathers baying for the blood of those who would rob their children of their innocence.  No men demanding the safety of their wives, sisters or daughters.  No mothers declaring ‘Not my child: enough is enough!’. No women’s groups and NGOs demanding that lawmakers stop deliberating on the importation of left hand vehicles and turn their attention to this more pressing issue.

Shame.

Directed by Jamie McLaren.

The Memory of Water

A dramatic comedy

Written by: Shelagh Stevenson

Starring: Danielle Connolly, Chipo Chikara, Maria Wilson, Lara Hundermark, Joe Levey and Josh Ansley

19th – 29th October at 7pm
Matinees 22nd and 29th at 2:30

Reps Theatre Upstairs

Tickets available at The Spotlight

$5 on Wednesday; $10 all other performances

PG 15

Pictures from the drama performed by the Young Voices Network at the report launch of Left Behind: The impact of Zimbabwe’s mass forced evictions on the Right to Education by Amnesty International Zimbabwe