Zimbabwe is Britain’s dirty not-so-secret; its people’s current terrible plight is the end result of our imperial endeavours in East Africa. British rule consisted essentially of our exporting the then Rhodesia‘s wealth back home to Blighty via a colonial administration that worked hand-in-hand with the nation’s white landowners (though nation is a misnomer, since we drew the border. Ditto the rules on land ownership.).
Cutting a very long story short, British colonial rule culminated in the eventual election of President Robert Mugabe, probably the only time the man has actually had a shred of political legitimacy. Mugabe is now well on the way to making himself President for Life, the better to finish the job of utterly destroying his fellow citizens.
How bad is it in Zimbabwe now? Could it get any worse, after the mad schemes of Mugabe, the torture and the murder and the AIDS and the home bulldozings and a life expectancy of 34?
Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings found out how bad it is for women when her eye was caught by an article on sanitary towels:
“SHE has been arrested 22 times, tortured so badly that her front teeth were knocked into her nose and had an AK-47 thrust up her vagina until she bled. Thabitha Khumalo’s crime: to campaign against a critical shortage of tampons and sanitary towels in Zimbabwe, one of the least talked about and most severe side-effects for women of the country’s economic crisis. (…)
So desperate is the situation that women are being forced to use rolled-up pieces of newspaper. Zimbabwe already has the world’s lowest life expectancy for women ‘ 34 ‘ and Khumalo believes these unhygienic practices could make it drop to as low as 20 because infections will make them more vulnerable to HIV. ‘It’s a time bomb,’ she said. The shortage is forcing schoolgirls to stay at home when they start menstruating.
The Zimbabwean TUC has been trying to help by importing sanitary products to distribute free:
This, I suppose, is why the latest consignment has been seized by the police and the Central Intelligence Organization, rather than by the customs officials. Opinions about the Zimbabwean government’s motives vary: opposition to the ZCTU, general mean-spiritedness, what have you. For my part, I have never found it very worthwhile to ascribe any coherent motivation at all to the people who run Zimbabwe. Your mileage may vary.
It’s a shocking article, but if you’re male and see the words ‘sanitary towels’ and think it’ll be boring women’s stuff, don’t skip it (and the very illuminating comments) because it isn’t. This is about how, as Hilzoy puts it:
…there are so many different ways in which people who are desperately poor get screwed; ways I had never ever thought of.
Quite.
Read more: Women, Periods, Menstruation, Zimbabwe, Mugabe, Poverty, Unions
