TENS OF thousands of children in Zimbabwe have been sexually assaulted over the past 10 years, according to a leading children’s rights campaigner who has been forced to flee the country.
Betty Makoni, who founded the Zimbabwean NGO Girl Child Network (GCN) in 1998, said the country’s political and economic collapse had created a climate in which its children had become increasingly vulnerable.
Speaking from the UK, Ms Makoni said that since 2000, GCN had recorded 45,000 cases of child rape, many carried out by men who believed they could cure themselves of Aids by having sex with a child.
As is the case in many southern African countries, Zimbabwe has a very high rate of HIV/Aids infection among its adult population. The latest ministry of health and child welfare statistics estimate that in 2009 about 13.7 per cent of adults were infected.
“Men in Zimbabwe think that having sex with a child will cure them of the disease because the blood that is spilt from having sex with a virgin is pure. Because there is currently an environment of impunity in Zimbabwe, few of the perpetrators have been brought before the courts to face charges for their crimes.
“I was forced to leave Zimbabwe last year. Men tried to break into my house with an axe because of the work I was doing to highlight the plight of our children,” said Ms Makoni, who was raped when she was six. Her claims have been supported by a leading Harare-based paediatrician, Robert-Grey Choto, who co-founded the capital’s Family Support Trust Clinic.
Dr Choto said that over the past four years he had encountered more than 29,000 cases of child sex abuse, with the figure for 10 years at more than 70,000. “It’s a tip of the iceberg – the problem is enormous. We need drugs and any assistance we can get,” he said.