Girl Child Network (GCN), Zimbabwe

My experiences to date in Zimbabwe have been both wonderful and painful.  I am working at the Girl Child Network (GCN), a grassroots NGO that aims to empower girls to stand up for their rights in the often-hostile world of Zimbabwe.  GCN began as an after school club for girls to discuss their common problems but has since developed into a massive national network of clubs, empowerment villages (where orphaned or abused girls live) and rescue centres.  Growing international recognition of GCN has also granted the organization a strong platform from which they can lobby the government and advocate on behalf of girls.

Despite every attempt by the organization to ease me into this new environment, my initial experiences were beyond what I could have imagined.  One of the first questions that I asked was how often we had to send a car out to rescue a girl from sexual abuse.  Once a month? Once every two weeks?  The programme officer laughed at me. "No.  More like 3 or 4 times a day."  Rape is an every day event.  My first week on the job totally overwhelmed me as girl after girl came into the office to tell her story.   Youth is no defense against rape in this country; the first girl who I met was 4 years old and had been   raped by her father's friend, who also happened to be a teacher. Every hour at work pushed my boundaries further.

All of the tragedy that we in Canada typically understand to accompany rape - psychological disturbances, physical pain, humiliation - are only the beginning for girls in Zimbabwe.  When a girl is raped one of the first things that GCN does is to take her for post-exposure prophylactics (PEP) to prevent the transmission of HIV from her rapist.  Twenty percent of Zimbabweans are HIV positive and myth that virgins cure AIDS has resulted in very high transmission rates from rapist to victim.  Often we must also work with the Department of Social Welfare to get the girl out of her home environment.    Approximately 10% of the rape cases that come to GCN involve a family member, and the girl is ostracized from her family if she labels them with the shame of an arrest.  Another frequent occurrence is either forced or early marriage of girls.  Girls are given to men of other families to appease the avenging spirits which might be angered at the actions of a relative.  Usually these girls become the 3rd or 4th wife to the man.  Finally, in a country where abortion is illegal unless the pregnancy is the result of incest, we see many girls who are 13 or 14 years old who must now raise the child of their rapist, often with no parents of their own (orphans are especially vulnerable to rape).

Still, despite all of the sadness around me, there is a lot to learn. One of the most important things that I have learned from my work at GCN is that you cannot separate advocacy from the groundwork.  You cannot advocate for girls' rights without also helping those girls to go to school and have a safe place to live.  It is through the stories and experiences of those for whom you are advocating that you come to really understand the struggles that they face every day.  You must be able not only to sympathize with their stories, but also to come up against the same roadblocks that they do to if you want to have any real passion behind your words.  In my short time here already I have been thrown out of a courtroom where the accused had (we strongly suspect) rigged the verdict by paying off the Magistrate.  I have felt the intimidation of the police and waited in the long lines in the hospitals for service.  I am fortunate that I am there only to accompany the girls, not as a victim myself, but it is through these experiences that I have begun to understand the systemic barriers for girls in Zimbabwe who want to enforce their legal rights.

I can't claim to have come up with any grand solutions.  The economic disorder in the country complicated matters even further.  Simple tasks, like making a phone call or getting petrol, can take hours because networks are always down, and the line-ups at gas stations are easily more than an hour long.  The state-owned electricity company will simply shut off the power in your grid, usually twice a day for several hours, or the water company will cut water supply without any notice.  Inflation is astronomical; the one hundred dollar bills that I used when I first got here were, three weeks later, worthless - people now use them to start their fires.  All of these problems of course hit the poor the hardest, with the girl child at the bottom of any social hierarchy.

But there is hope.  While the national problems seem too daunting to deal with, GCN is helping individual girls to make better lives for themselves. The LIFT Project raised funds for the Girl Child Network this year at the annual LIFT Gala, and it has been wonderful for me to see these funds put to use.  The over $10,000 that was raised at the Gala has been used to help support victims of rape with medical treatment and shelter, to upgrade one of the "Empowerment Villages" (where orphaned girls or sexually abused girls without a home to stay at are housed) and to provide school fees for girls.   Every day there are success stories. 

Sarah was a beneficiary of GCN for several years. She was orphaned when she was 17 - her parents having both died from HIV - and GCN helped her to pay her school fees and monthly subsistence.  Sarah has just recently completed her law degree at the University of Zimbabwe and is moving to the United States next month for a fellowship programme.  GCN has helped countless others with counseling, legal support, school fees, shelter and food all the while advocating for social change.  The experience has truly been inspirational to me, teaching me how easy it is to act to change the lives of individuals.