BY TAPUWA MASAWI.
Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – Most women organisations in Zimbabwe are concerned that most women who are coming into the country from South Africa because of Xenophobia attacks will be the most affected.
Speaking to News Of The South, Zimbabwe Young Women’s Network for Peace Building programmes officer Kundai Hilda Chikoko said they are concerned that most women returnees will be vulnerable since the economy is dipping.
“These women returnees will now be vulnerable to abuse since they will not find any employment in the country,” said Chikoko.
Chikoko said she foresee an upsurge in commercial sex work as the women returnees seek alternative source of income.
“Sex work is going to increase as most women coming from South Africa will take it as the easiest way out of poverty,’’ she said.
Lindai Baipai, who works with the Zimbabwe Women Resource Centre, said some women were married to South Africans and Xenophobia did not spare them which means they are now separated from their husbands who mostly were their breadwinners and that back home they will suffer stigma on being single-parents.
“It`s touching that some of the women returnees we spoke to were married to South Africans and now they are separated from their husbands and now that they have to do with being labelled derogatory terms associated with being a single-parent worse off with a foreign child the stigma will be way too much for them, ”lamented Baipai.
Xenophobic attacks in South Africa have seen thousands of Zimbabweans flocking back home after they were displaced with the attacks by South Africans who are arguing that foreigners are taking up their jobs and are also engaging in criminal activities.
Many have attributed King Goodswill Zwelithini ’s utterances that ‘foreigners should pack their bags and go’ as having precipitated the violent attacks that is reported to have claimed the lives of two Zimbabweans.
The Zimbabwean government has provided buses to ferry the xenophobic violence victims back home.
Many Zimbabweans fled the country during the economic meltdown and had vowed to stay put in South Africa as the country is still struggling with high unemployment rate.
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