Zanu-PF women’s league chairperson Oppah Muchinguri, who is also the co-chairperson of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC), says she is studying for a PhD and [will] use the opportunity to write about the difficult experiences of women during the war of liberation including rape.

As published by our top partner Radio VoP

Muchinguri said this while addressing a group of women who were raped during the 2008 elections in Harare. The women will tell their experiences to the public at a sexual violence and peace conference to be held in Harare this week.

“What I want to tell you about are things that happened a long time ago. No-one has written about it and I am looking forward to doing it next year. I will try and trace the experiences I saw during the war of liberation while I was in Mozambique and what I experienced,” said Muchinguri who is seen as a walking encyclopedia of the country’s war of liberation.

“We used to stay in several bases. That time [Ian] Smith used to send Selous scouts whose job was to harrass women and rape them. Rape was a tool that was used to chase women away from the frontline. In politics rape is used as a weapon to weaken women.”

Read the full story here.