elderly people. They were all beaten up. What we want to know is why is God doing this to us?”94 Women Those made most vulnerable by the evictions and demolitions are women and children who continue to have no or minimal access to shelter, food and other basic services. Women have increasingly become the sole bread winners in the home, as unemployment has reached unprecedented levels in Zimbabwe.95 A significant proportion of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch were from female headed households, due to the high rate of HIV/AIDS which has left many women widowed and HIV positive.96 Operation Murambatsvina took place in an environment of profound gender discrimination against women in Zimbabwe with respect to property inheritance and ownership, highlighting the failure of the government to adequately legislate for women’s equality in the areas of inheritance and division of family property upon divorce, and in particular the problem of courts bowing to discriminatory customary laws.97 This has been particularly exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Reasons for the high proportion of women in the informal settlements include a plethora of abusive and discriminatory practices including property grabbing when their spouses die, discrimination in inheritance, lack of equal property rights upon divorce, difficulties in obtaining credit to purchase property, and discriminatory attitudes of public officials handling issues such as the registration of deeds to property and the approval of land transfers.98 94 Human Rights Watch interview, Porta Farm, June 30, 2005. For more on unemployment in Zimbabwe see Dashwood, H S. “Zimbabwe: The Political Economy of Transformation, 2000; see also African Development Bank, “Gender, Poverty and Environmental Indicators on African Countries,” 2005. 95 96 Human Rights Watch interviews with local NGOs working with HIV positive women and widows, June 2005; see also policy document on gender by the Gender Department in the Ministry of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation, Zimbabwe 2001. Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions: “Bringing Equality Home: Promoting and Protecting the Inheritance Rights of Women,” Geneva, Switzerland. Also available at http://www.cohre.org/downloads/womensinheritance-rights-africa.pdf. See also Mildred T. Mushunje, “Women’s land rights in Zimbabwe,” (2001); AS Tsanga and V Nkiwane, “A critical analysis of women and children’s constitutional and legal rights in Zimbabwe in relation to the women and children’s conventions,” August 2001. 97 98 Ibid. Human Rights Watch interviews with women and women’s organizations, Harare, June and July 2005. 22