Accelerating Action for Women’s Rights: Amnesty International Zimbabwe’s Women’s Day Celebration

By Regina Pasipanodya

Amnesty International Zimbabwe has expressed its continuous commitment to supporting women in Hopley in accessing sexual reproductive health rights, especially in maternal health. This was confirmed at the International Women’s Day celebration which was held at Rising Star School in Hopley recently.

In an interview with Amnesty International Gender and Intersectional Justice Officer Rachel Jambo, she said statistics shared by the Ministry of Health about neonatal deaths and maternal mortality are disturbing.

This follows the disclosure of the disturbing news by Deputy Minister of Health and Childcare, Sleiman Kwidini, to the Parliament recently that nearly 300 infants and 54 women died due to complications during childbirth in January 2025 with Harare recording the highest number of neonatal deaths, with 111 cases, alongside 19 maternal deaths.

“Therefore, as Amnesty International Zimbabwe we are working with Hopley because according to our research, we found out that the entire community is suffering from a plethora of sexual reproductive health issues making it difficult for the women and girls to have access to maternal healthcare services. Currently, we are running a programme; “My Campaign in Fistula Restore Dignity” here in Hopley, which is centred around raising awareness of the maternal morbidity of obstetric fistula”.

She said the campaign targets adolescent girls since the community has a high prevalence of teenage pregnancies and school dropouts.

“Given the statistics that have come out from the Ministry of Health, we know that this is a very sexually active demographic which means that we do need to accelerate action for the protection of women and girls, and we are advocating for them to be empowered economically, through education and access to healthcare sector, specifically sexual reproductive health services,” she said.

During the celebration, members of the community managed to share their experiences centred around sexual reproduction health with the community.

One community member only identified as Amai Tino said, the escalating problem in their locality is drug and substance abuse as young people end up misbehaving, becoming violent or even being involved in sex parties.

“Due to such illicit activities in the community we have seen a lot of young women and girls dropping out of school due to teenage pregnancies”, said amai Tino.

James Chikotoro highlighted that when it comes to dignity and good upbringing it seems most parents are failing their children nowadays. He revealed that in Hopley, most children are now taking drugs openly without fear.

“We are seeing a lot of them in a bar drinking alcohol and we wonder if there are still any parents out there with such children,” said Chikotoro.

Over the past few years, Zimbabwe has been battling the scourge of illicit drugs and narcotics, which is slowly gnawing at the younger generation.

According to research, drivers of drug abuse include peer pressure, broken families, emotional and physical abuse, and curiosity, often resulting in addiction and a mix there is violence and sex.

“So we felt this is the right ground for us to be on the ground and just basically do a lot of human rights education, linking issues of access to sexual reproductive health services with the general wellness and trajectory of women and girls in the theme of Accelerate Action. As Amnesty we have been doing a lot of awareness raising, I think, from even before last year over the years. I think it’s just now that we are looking to scale up more in terms of our presence and cascading information in the community,” added Jambo.

Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 10 million people in over 150 countries and territories who campaign to end abuses of human rights.