12 Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women Pre-session working group – Zimbabwe The police have used the Public Order and Security Act (POSA)12 to deny human rights defenders permission to hold peaceful demonstrations. Police use the POSA to break up peaceful demonstrations, arrest and detain human rights defenders. Women human rights defenders have been charged under the POSA or the Criminal Codification Reform Act after engaging in peaceful protest including on issues especially affecting women as the primary providers, not only for their own children but also for other children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic, such as access to food, water, health care, electricity, and education. Amnesty International is also concerned about the ill-treatment of women human rights defenders while in police custody after engaging in, or attempting to engage in, peaceful protest. They are often held in overcrowded cells for periods ranging from a couple of hours to several days before being taken to court or released. Police often deny human rights defenders access to lawyers, to food and to sanitary products.13 In addition, human rights defenders who are injured as a result of police beatings during arrest and/or while in custody are also denied access to medical care. These human rights violations have gender specific manifestations and a gender specific impact on women human rights defenders as described below. Amnesty International has documented several cases of excessive use of force by police during arrest and detention of women human rights defenders.14 4.1 DISCRIMINATION, SEXUALITY BAITING, DISCRIMINATORY STEREOTYPING OF WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS AND DENIAL OF ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE IN POLICE CUSTODY (ARTICLES 2(D), 7(C) AND 12)) Since 2000, human rights defenders in Zimbabwe, including members of WOZA, have been targeted for arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, torture and other ill-treatment while in police custody. For women human rights defenders, their ill-treatment by police while in detention often takes a gender specific dimension designed to humiliate and to de-legitimize women’s human rights concerns and activism. Amnesty International has documented cases of women human rights defenders who have been arrested and taken into police custody, and were humiliated and subjected to sexist verbal attacks. These include being called “whores” and being told that they are “bad women” who deserve no sympathy from the police authorities. Women human rights defenders are portrayed as deviant women who have malicious intentions. This form of treatment amounts to sexuality baiting, aimed at undermining the work of women human rights defenders by discrediting their activities and isolating them from the rest of the human rights movement. Amnesty International has information that women who dare to challenge violations of economic and social rights are subjected to derogatory or sinister accusations by 12 At the time of reporting a Private Member Bill to amend the POSA was still being debated in Parliament. 13 Rule 5 of the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules) requires access to sanitary towels free of charge, and access to washing facilities for menstruating women. UN Doc A/RES/65/229, 16 March 2011: available at http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/docs/2010/res%202010-16.pdf (accessed 10 June 2011). 14 Zimbabwe: Between a rock and a hard place - women human rights defenders at risk, Index AFR 46/017/2007, 25 July 2007 Amnesty International June 2011 Index: AFR 46/014/2011