Zim women tops the migrants chart

Beitbridge Senator Tambudzani Mohadi has claimed that women in the country are topping the list of migrants to other countries and the government must consider the factors which led women to cross borders.

She said women migration was a thorny issue.

"You will find that women are the most affected people whenever we talk about migration. There are factors that lead the women's migration. You find that during the war, women, just because they are defenceless, they are forced to migrate from one place to another and seek refuge with their children just because they cannot defend themselves," she said. "They will be having nothing to eat and no shelter. Let us say in a home when there is violence, a woman beaten or there is a conflict with the husband, she will be forced to move from her original place to another place of which it does not put her correctly and nicely because she would have left her home and by that time, she might be taking her children, running away from their matrimonial home."

She said sometimes these women migrate just because of economic reasons.

"I will give you a simple example which I have physically seen taking place as a person who leaves along the border; sometimes I travel along this road by public transport. One day I was shocked when I was travelling with so many women carrying babies on their backs. They got into that bus which I was traveling in. We travelled and when we were about 10km to Beitbridge, the whole lot of those women, there were about 15; they disembarked off the bus," Mohadi said. "I thought maybe they were lost. I talked to them and advised them that we had not reached Beitbridge. They did not answer me because they knew they had an agenda. These women when I inquired because I was touched by women moving out of the bus at night around 2 o'clock a.m."

She said she went to the conductor and asked him what was taking place.

"Unfortunately, he did not know me and thought it was just a genuine question. He explained to me that these women had their husbands across the border in South Africa. I asked where they were going at that time and he told me that these women were going to cross the river at the illegal crossing point and when they get across the Limpopo river, they would get transport from South Africa which would take them to their final destinations," Mohadi said.

"It was so painful. From that point in the morning I went to the immigration trying to highlight this issue to them because I could not understand; a woman carrying a baby on her back and having another child here and a few goods travelling at night and crossing the Limpopo River which is infested by crocodiles; how she was going to cross that river? It was really painful."

Mohadi said migration ends up causing early child marriages.

"I will talk mostly about South Africa which I have seen things happening. As they cross these rivers, the girls will not be having money and not knowing exactly where they will be going. As they reach the crossing places, they find people there who are supposed to assist them cross the river. That is where these children are raped at the ages of 13 – 14 years," she said.

"It does not end there. As they cross the river and get to the South African side where they are supposed to get employment. They will not be knowing anyone. They are supposed to get shelter and food, how do they get all this? Something has to happen; they get raped to get accommodation and employment.   This is a sad issue of which when I talk about I feel deeply disturbed."

The senator said children and women are exposed to ill health as they move just across the river meeting two or three men who have not even been tested and who really cares about them being tested, that child is traumatized for the rest of her life.

"That is where she will get these chronic diseases like HIV and AIDS and so on which will never be healed in her life time. These are the dangers and challenges that we are facing in migration. I would urge the Government if ever we have any policy or something to do with these migrations to assist the women and the youths because their lives are in danger," she said.