ACTSA (Action for South Africa) held a rally for Zimbabwe this Saturday in Trafalgar Square. About a thousand people turned up to support their campaign for dignity for women around the world, mainly in Zimbabwe. The focus of their campaign was the great difficulty Zimbabwean women have in finding sanitary towels. With inflation topping 1600%, one pack of sanitary towels costs more than 50% of the average monthly wage for women in Zimbabwe. This has resulted in millons of Zimbabwean women being forced to replace tampons with newspapers and dirty rags, a practice which has led to vaginal infections for which there is no available medication.
Speakers included Lovemore Matombo and Lucia Matibenga from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the Chairperson of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe Kate Hoey and the NUS Women’s Officer Kat Stark. They talked of the plight of the country and specifically the women in Zimbabwe, calling for donations to help them get the sanitary towels they needed. There were also songs from the Zimbabwean protest singer Viomak before a mass procession took people back to the vigil that takes place every Saturday outside the Zimbabwean embassy on the Strand.
Speakers included Lovemore Matombo and Lucia Matibenga from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the Chairperson of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe Kate Hoey and the NUS Women’s Officer Kat Stark. They talked of the plight of the country and specifically the women in Zimbabwe, calling for donations to help them get the sanitary towels they needed. There were also songs from the Zimbabwean protest singer Viomak before a mass procession took people back to the vigil that takes place every Saturday outside the Zimbabwean embassy on the Strand.
Comments
Hide the following 10 comments
viva mugabe
11.03.2007 15:29
Is mugabe really so bad?? Or is he bad to rich white landowners who have no right whatsoever to own land in africa, land stolen by centuries of colonialism and neo imperialism. Is that not the issue, really?
idi
Current Zimbabwean Statistics
11.03.2007 16:45
- Highest inflation, officially at around 1700%. The IMF predicts 4000% inflation this year.
- Fastest shrinking economy
- Lowest life expectancy – 34 for women, 37 for men (source UN)
- Highest number of orphans per capita (source UNICEF)
- Death rate 3,500 per week – exceeds: Darfur (x 10), Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda (x 2)
- 80% unemployment
- 80% below poverty line
- Half the population starving
- 24%+ HIV Positive – 90% HIV infection rate in the army, 70% infection rate in post-natal women
- More than 15,000 cases of torture and violence documented since 2001 (Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum)
- 42,000 mothers died in childbirth in 2006 (less than 1,000 in 1996)
Zimbabwean activist
idi, idiot
11.03.2007 17:51
I am guessing the moniker is suposed to be ironic or maybe defending dictators is your thing?
jimmy
Current Zimbabwean Statistics
11.03.2007 20:15
Now why don't you tell us that Mugabe did that all on his own?
And how when theres a nice privatised economy come the death of Mugabe, everythings going to be alright?
You see, there might actually be some truth in what Idi is suggesting........
;-)
Ian Smith
Idi's comment
12.03.2007 01:29
So as long as men of Mugabe's ilk are still calling the shots, zimbabwean people will be forced to remain in their current state of mind, chasing shadows and abhoring enemies that dont exist, regardless of whether they know where their next meal is coming from...
ichalis
To all Mugabe Supporters
12.03.2007 03:25
"Bob's friend"
response
12.03.2007 10:43
idi
Pictures from the ACTSA Rally for Dignity, London
13.03.2007 10:16
Solidarity with ZCTU
Dignity! Period.
The End of the Rally
Drums and Dancing at the Zimbabwean embassy
Flowers for the Zimbabwean embassy
There will be more pictures from the rally and vigil on 'My London Diary', along with my own comments, starting on the March 2007 page at
Peter
Peter Marshall
e-mail:
petermarshall@cix.co.uk
Homepage:
http://mylondondiary.co.uk
colonialism rules
14.03.2007 09:28
Mugabe committed many atrocities against Ndebele people in the early 1980s which no one here cared about. The economic mess in Zimbabwe has been brought about by the structural adjustment policies of the IMF, imposed in the early 1990s, as much as by anything Mugabe has done. Capitalism needs CHEAP raw materials for manufacturing, which are plentiful in parts of Africa and so African economies can't be allowed to prosper. Economic chaos and devastation creates ideal climates for political repression - Germany in the 1930s, Rwanda, Yugoslavia - the latter both brought down economically by SAPs. Rwanda was encouraged to grow a single crop - coffee and when world coffee prices plummeted the economy was devastated.
It doesn't matter who is in power when there are colonial economic bodies like the IMF, World Bank, WTO dictating to smaller governments. If the MDC get into power they will be manipulated and
controlled by the super powers and ordinary people will continue to suffer and die. Mugabe has fallen from grace in the West because he has aligned himself with China but he is the same man wanting to hold power then, now, always. The people will rule one day!
mental mouse
serious Zimbabwe rally
21.03.2007 16:09
My name is Abigail Jones.I am a 20 year old Zimbabwean, now living in England. I have been heartened and encouraged by the recent wave of international attention given to Zimbabwe, though, as we all know, the situation in that once wonderful and hopeful country has been desperate for many years now, and such attention is long past due.
I think that it is highly important that, at this time, maintaining pressure on Mugabe and on the international community is vital, and I am looking to organise a very large, imaginitive and successful Zimbabwe protest outside the Houses of Parliament in April or May.
Preferably (as I know many Zimbabweans not based in London would like to attend, and cannot do so on workdays) this would take place on a Saturday at noon/early afternoon, after which we would move to the vigil at Zimbabwe House for the usual 2 o clock start there.
I would like to draw media attention to this event when it happens, and I would be most grateful if anyone could give me advice about how best to pull this off or put me in contact with some useful sources. I am hoping this rally will be a huge success, and I would be delighted if it accorded the tragic situation in Zimbabwe more attention and action
Best and many thanks,
Abigail Jones
Abigail Jones
e-mail:
abbytransylvania@yahoo.co.uk