Thelma Wandayi
GWERU – Women Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCOZ) has written seeking justice to the recent abduction and torture of three MDC Alliance activists; Joanah Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova.
The three were said to have been arrested for contravening lockdown restrictions through organising a flash rally in Kuwadzana.
Police on social media has denied arresting the three before reversing their statement that the three politicians were in police custody earlier on.
WCOZ has questioned why the three particularly women were plucked out from a grouping of protestors.
The women rights watchdog also condemned the abductions and called for the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, National Peace and Reconciliation Commission and Zimbabwe Gender Commission to help pursue justice over the matter.
“WCOZ condemns in the strongest terms the abduction, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment that the women were subjected to. We decry the culture of passing the blame and passing responsibility by government entities, to the point where no one is ultimately responsible for the violation of women’s rights,” wrote WCOZ in their protest statement.
“The attack reminds Zimbabweans and women in particular, of the persistent environment of fear, intimidation and ensuing impunity of perpetrators that creates and nurtures fear in the public political domain of Zimbabwe.
“…the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission, and the Zimbabwe Gender Commission to exercise urgency in the activation of their mechanisms and mandates in fully addressing and supporting the required accounting for this incitement which is systematic in Zimbabwean political environment,” further reads the statement.
The government of Zimbabwe however plans to charge the three currently hospitalised politicians for staging an unsanctioned demonstration and violating the country’s lockdown regulations amid emerging circumstances to their abduction which include sexual assault.
