FOREWORD FROM OXFAM
Oxfam believes that violence against girls and women is a manifestation of gender
inequality and discrimination, and a tool used to maintain girls’ and women’s
subordinate status. Alarmed by the increasing statistics in the country on sexual
violence against girls, and considering the subordinate nature of the age group, and
the complexity for a girl child to effectively highlight the ordeals and to manoeuvre the
justice delivery system, Oxfam was compelled to support Justice for Children (JCT) to
carry out this research in a bid to unearth the issues on the ground. Oxfam is sincerely
grateful that at last, through this research and subsequent documentary production,
JCT has managed to bring out critical issues on sexual violence against girls.
Our desire in supporting this work was to capture the children’s voices and
expressions. Our aim was to highlight the interplay between policy and practice. Our
burden was the analysis of the complexity of rape and sexual violence in that the harm
caused continues beyond the duration of the act itself and has implications on
emotional health, physical health, education, social relations, to mention a few. Our
niche was to highlight the bottlenecks in the justice delivery system, with the vision of
a system that works for children.
The irony and complexity of the issue is that Zimbabwe has a significant legal and
policy framework in place aimed at dealing with rape and sexual violence. These
include the Constitution of Zimbabwe; the Children’s Act; the Criminal law
(Codification and Reform) Act; Domestic Violence Act; Criminal Procedure and
Evidence Act; the Victim friendly system; and Protocol on the multi-sectoral
management of sexual abuse and violence in Zimbabwe. The challenge, as always, is
IMPLEMENTATION.
It is our desire therefore, that the significant gap between policy and practice be
addressed, if not for anything, but our children. It is our hope that the findings and
analysis from this research will not be an end in itself, but will stimulate national
debate and action. It is our hope that the institutional systems will be strengthened to
prevent, respond and to provide support services to GBV survivors and that
government’s financial resource allocation be commensurate with the magnitude of
the issue at hand to enable the implementation of the policy and legal framework.
Finally, it is our hope that this research will contribute to the significant reduction in
the incidence of sexual violence against girls.
Advocacy and Policy manager (L. Machanzi)
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