Dead by 34: How Aids and starvation condemn Zimbabwe's women to early grave

[rodeodance]

Dead by 34: How Aids and starvation condemn Zimbabwe's women to early grave

Dead by 34: How Aids and starvation condemn Zimbabwe's women to early grave
This is the fate of women in Zimbabwe, where they now have the world's lowest life expectancy after 26 years of Mugabe
By Daniel Howden in Bulawayo
Published: 17 November 2006

A rusted wire fence divides the old Zimbabwe from the new. On the one side lies Effie Malamba; born in 1901 she was buried beneath a granite headstone 90 years later. On the other is Sylvia Ncube; born in 1974 she was laid to rest just 32 years later. The wire separates Bulawayo's old Hyde Park cemetery from the extension opened this February. Effie lies amid ordered ranks of stone epitaphs. Sylvia lies in a chaos of churned earth. All around her the mounds of mud and stones, garlanded with plastic flowers, tell the story of the shocking disintegration of Zimbabwe, which now has the lowest life expectancy for women anywhere in the world: 34.

A forest of black metal plates marks the mounting death toll and their hand-painted white numbers record the birth dates of a missing generation. Thulan Sabanda, born 1972; Ozia Moyo in 1971, Lulu Olomo in 1975, are just three of hundreds.

The World Health Organisation has plotted this precipitous fall in women's mortality in the former British colony from 65, little more than a decade ago, to today's low. Speaking privately, WHO officials admitted to The Independent that the real number may be as low as 30, as the present figures are based on data collected two years ago.

The reasons for this plunge are several. Zimbabwe has found itself at the nexus of an Aids pandemic, a food crisis and an economic meltdown that is killing an estimated 3,500 people every week. That figure is more than those dying in Iraq, Darfur or Lebanon. In war-torn Afghanistan, where women's plight has received global attention, life expectancy is still above 40.

[Canadian Socialist]

1. Do you have a link for this article?

Sounds interesting. TIA!