No charge against Mohadi yet

Zimbabwe Anti-Domestic Violence Council (ZADVC) said unless a formal complaint has been filed they cannot charge Vice President Kembo Mohadi for alleged domestic violence.

At a press briefing on the current statistics of gender-based violence, ZADVC chairperson Eunice Njovana said they only know of the incident based on an unverified newspaper article.

The press briefing comes at a time when Mohadi allegedly threatened to kill his ex-wife Tambudzani Mohadi and vandalised her Beitbridge home over a domestic altercation on shared properties.

"We have not received official information on that incident. The principle of the nation is that domestic violence is wrong but we cannot go beyond that since we do not have sufficient details to discuss beyond what was read online," she said.

According to statistics presented by Njovana, the cases of domestic violence dropped from 2016 to 2018. In 2016, 1 993 men reported cases of domestic violence to the police while 17 673 women reported, in 2017 2 461 men were victims and 16 067 were women.

The 2018, statistics which were compiled until September showed that 2 461 men reported cases of domestic violence, while 10 064 women reported cases of domestic violence. "While the issue of gender-based violence affects both men and women as you saw from the statistics, women are disproportionately represented as they are most affected than men.

So sometimes the actions come from that. There is an understanding that in order to end domestic violence there is a need to engage men as both perpetrators and survivors of domestic violence. There is a broader definition of domestic violence and gender-based violence which needs to be understood so that we do not have another layer of patriarchy all for the sake of male inclusion in the debate on domestic violence," Njovana said.