ZIMBABWE/UK/FILE: Women in Zimbabwe facing growing health problems as a result of a lack of basic sanitary protection

Record ID: 216780

  • Title: ZIMBABWE/UK/FILE: Women in Zimbabwe facing growing health problems as a result of a lack of basic sanitary protection
  • Date: 4th August 2007
  • Summary: (AD1) HARARE, ZIMBABWE (RECENT - JULY 12, 2007) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WAITING TO ENTER SHOP POLICE MANNING SHOPPING AREA PEOPLE RUSHING INTO SHOP POLICE MANNING SHOP GATE POLICE TRUCK PEOPLE SHOPPING WOMAN PUSHING TROLLEY EMPTY FRIDGES IN SHOP
  • Embargoed: 19th August 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA8M36YZZ46TGKFEG9AY5Y2J40D
  • Story Text: A single pack of sanitary pads costs more than 50 per cent of the average monthly wage for women in Zimbabwe. Campaigners are attempting to resolve the growing number of resultant health problems faced by women by donating a quarter of a million free packs across the troubled country.
    With inflation running at an estimated 4,500 per cent and rising, Zimbabwe's economy has been crippled by acute food, fuel and water shortages.
    President Robert Mugabe's decision last month to force shops to slash prices by half resulted in a nation-wide stampede for goods, leaving most supermarket shelves bare. Among the many shortages are basic sanitary products for women, which have become increasingly unaffordable or unavailable.
    A single pack of sanitary pads costs more than 50 per cent of the average monthly wage for women in Zimbabwe. Faced with such economic adversity, manufacturers of sanitary products have fled Zimbabwe, compounding the shortages.
    As a consequence, millions of Zimbabwean women are replacing hygienic sanitary protection with newspapers and dirty rags, a practice which has led to severe infections for which there is no available medication.
    Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA), the successor organisation to the Anti-Apartheid Movement, have launched a major campaign to provide the women of Zimbabwe with sanitary protection. ACTSA's 'Dignity! Period' campaign has so far distributed more than three million sanitary products to Zimbabwean women, in conjunction with the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).
    Lucia Matibenga, first vice president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, is on a week-long tour of Britain to promote the campaign internationally. Speaking in the ACTSA's London office on Thursday (August 1) she elucidated the origins of the campaign. "We discovered women were resorting to use alternatives, alternatives that we sincerely believe are not safe alternatives, such as the use of old pieces of cloth, the use of newspapers or toilet paper or anything soft that they think can actually be used to absorb the stuff during the time when they are observing their periods."
    Matibenga, who is also National Chairperson of the Women's Assembly for Zimbabwe's opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), added: "If you look at a piece of, an old piece of cloth, which is not sterilised or anything to be put in the softest part of the body of the woman, and also newspapers there is ink and also various chemicals used on the newspapers. We really see that this results in infection."
    The trade unionist revealed that these infections are often falsely attributed to sexually promiscuity leading to social embarrassment and domestic violence. She said: "If your partner then discovers you have this infection they are quick to think that probably this is a result of promiscuous behaviour without necessarily looking at that it is actually a result of the items used."
    Sanitary product manufacturer Bodyform has joined forces with the campaign to raise vital funds, as well as bringing the severe situation to the attention of the international community. Bodyform will be donating funds for a quarter of a million packs of sanitary towels to be produced in Zimbabwe for those women unable to afford basic sanitary protection.
    Having originally been charged what Matibenga describes as "exorbitant" duty by Zimbabwean customs to import the packs, the ACTSA have struck a deal with one of the few remaining manufacturers to remain in the troubled southern African country.
    She explained: "To circumvent the issue of having to pay duty we have identified a local manufacturer in Harare who is supplying these products to us at the ZCTU and this is what, this is the action that Bodyform has complemented. They have already put a commitment of funds which are going to buy products, a quarter of a million packets, in Zimbabwe."
    Prices in Zimbabwe could be 1,000 times higher at the end of this year than they were at the beginning, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Africa director Abdoulaye Bio-Tchane said this week.
    Critics blame the policies of President Robert Mugabe, including the seizure of thousands of white-owned farms.
    Zimbabwe's central bank announced it would issue new, higher denominated bank notes on Wednesday (July 31) to help consumers cope with hyper-inflation.
    Mubage, 83, has remained defiant despite the growing crisis, accusing opponents and Western powers of plotting to oust him.
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