and Reform) Act and the Children’s Act which needs urgent alignment to constitutional arrangements. Zimbabwe has a strong legal framework to prevent all forms of gender-based violence. The constitutional provisions are supported by provisions in the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) that was put in place to protect women, men and children from violence, the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act and the Children’s Act. “These laws, in the absence of an enabling support framework and knowledge on the specific laws and processes still limit access to justice for disadvantaged groups such as children and women, ‘’ said Govhati. A case in point is the Beitbridge child kidnapping saga where the project effectively used advocacy for the benefit of marginalised children. Below is the story of one Rayon Rushwaya: 3.5.4 Mothers’ brave fight against perpetrator A group of Beitbridge women in April 2016 achieved a rare feat when they literally forced the police to arrest an influential suspected Beitbridge sex predator accused of seducing more than 20 under-age school girls, six of whom had fallen pregnant at that time. Some of the girls now have babies while others are said to be deceased. 4The women, who included parents of some of the girls, guardians and activists, cornered the suspect, Rayson Tsvangirai Rushwaya at the Beitbridge Magistrate’s Court where he had come for another matter in which he is accused of insulting a journalist through a text message. “Police were telling us they could not locate him. We knew he would be appearing in court on another matter and we pounced on him there and called the police,” said one of the women, who cannot be named to protect her under-age child’s identity. “When we saw him at the courts, we told police we would inform [police Commissioner-General Augustine] Chihuri if they did not come to arrest him. We were ready to go that route.” The woman, crying as she related her ordeal following the alleged abduction of her 17-yearold child from her home in February 2016, said she had initially wanted Rushwaya to be charged for marrying a girl who is under 18, but there were no statutes to support that. “The police took him to court, but there were no supporting statutes to sustain the charge and he walked a free man.” “But when an appropriate charge was found, police were no longer forthcoming,” she said, adding the case was moved from one investigating officer to another. Surprisingly, police allegedly sat on the matter without making procedural reports to their provincial office, or following upon possible criminal leads. “The new investigating officer at first kept us up to date with his investigations, but started distancing himself, telling us he 4 The Standard Newspaper, 23 April 2016.