I n s t i t u t e fo r j us t i ce a n d r eco n ci l iat i o n a fr i c a pr o g r a m m e community with the objective of controlling political territorial spaces and resources. Women have been both direct and inadvertent targets of this violence through the often sexual brutalisation of their bodies, leaving them not only traumatised but experiencing a loss of both identity and womanhood. The second is structural violence, represented by the networks of unequal power relations between men and women, which are reinforced by oppressive policies that create psychological harm and trauma for women. Structural violence legitimises the power inequalities between men and women, both in their families and in society more generally. It also perpetuates gender-based violence through the enactment of discriminatory laws and policies and through the discriminatory application of the law (Valji, 2010). This form of violence renders almost all women vulnerable to being forcefully displaced from their families and homes and causing them to lose access to the means of ensuring their daily livelihoods. An even more extreme form of structural violence are practices that involve forcing women to provide sexual services to members of political gangs, militias or security forces. These acts intend, among other things, to exercise social control over women, and to make this control common knowledge in communities. Change and intervention at the level of structural violence can only occur as a result of altering the systems that support it. This includes, but is not limited to, instituting policies that prohibit the commodification of women’s rights and needs as citizens, and ensuring equal access to social, political and economic rights (Ho, 2007). In times of conflict and political violence, structural violence in the form of sexism and sexual abuse can become so common that it appears almost normal. Third is cultural violence aimed at justifying violence against women as an acceptable and even desirable attribute of masculinity while simultaneously devaluing the dignity of women and all attributes considered feminine. This form of violence invokes cultural values, beliefs and norms that glorify patriarchal practices including wife beating and polygamy. These are in turn used to legitimise violence in its direct and structural form. Cultural violence makes direct and structural violence look and feel right and acceptable to society (Galtung, 1990). Fourth is the social and economic violence, which is usually a manifestation of direct, structural and cultural violence, and which traps women in vicious cycles of poverty, disempowerment and dependence. It is perpetrated against multitudes of women by denying them equal access to education, and cultural as well as socio-economic and legal status. As Galtung (1969; 1990) argues, these four forms of violence interact in a dynamic and toxic causal relationship to shrink and constrain the public and private spaces occupied by women. Traditionally-framed processes of transitional justice in Zimbabwe are not exempt from the influence of this toxic mix, hence the need to subject them to the interrogation, analysis and critique attempted in this paper. (Re)conceptualising national healing as a transitional-justice process Debates around gender issues in transitional justice tend to emphasise sexual violence against women, and focus particularly on the role of the judiciary in addressing these violations (see Anderlini et al.). While this approach is essential and can lead to prosecutions, critics argue that it tends to minimise the causes of violence and puts the perpetrator of violent acts at centre stage. Human Rights Watch (1996), for example, argues that instead the focus should be on gendered power relations, and particularly on how these power dynamics allow continued sexualised violence against women. In other words, a primary focus on acts of violence means that the structural, cultural and economic issues that lie at the heart of women’s disempowerment, and which can be said to facilitate gender violence, are underplayed. In Zimbabwe, acts of physical as well as structural and cultural violence, 4 IJR Zimbabwe Womens needs OP proof 2.indd 4 7/16/2012 11:01:30 AM