By Daniel Howden in Bulawayo
Republished from The Independent
In the 26 years of Robert Mugabe’s rule the life expectancy of women in Zimbabwe has reduced from 65 to 34. The economy has collapsed and the most basic services are lacking. Mugabe’s secret police stifles any notion of dissent apart from the defiant and courageous Jenni Williams’ Woza (Women of Zimbabwe Arise).
Women have the world’s lowest life expectancy
A rusted wire fence divides the old Zimbabwe from the new. On the one side lies Effie Malamba; born in 1901 she was buried beneath a granite headstone 90 years later. On the other is Sylvia Ncube; born in 1974 she was laid to rest just 32 years later. The wire separates Bulawayo’s old Hyde Park cemetery from the extension opened this February. Effie lies amid ordered ranks of stone epitaphs. Sylvia lies in a chaos of churned earth. All around her the mounds of mud and stones, garlanded with plastic flowers, tell the story of the shocking disintegration of Zimbabwe, which now has the lowest life expectancy for women anywhere in the world: 34.A forest of black metal plates marks the mounting death toll and their hand-painted white numbers record the birth dates of a missing generation. Thulan Sabanda, born 1972; Ozia Moyo in 1971, Lulu Olomo in 1975, are just three of hundreds.
[end excerpt]
