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ZHRC to engage chiefs over rights violations

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The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) says it will be engaging chiefs over rights violations as traditional leaders are key in stemming the vice.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) says it will be engaging chiefs over rights violations as traditional leaders are key in stemming the vice.

By Tatenda Chitagu

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In an interview on the sidelines of an outreach programme at Mucheke Hall in Masvingo recently, ZHRC chairperson Elasto Mugwadi said topping the agenda would be the issue of child marriages.

“We are going to have workshops with traditional leaders because they have a lot to help us, especially on child marriages. We want them to take active roles in avoiding human rights violations. We will engage them and we have talked with Chiefs’ Council president, Chief Fortune Charumbira,” he said.

The ZHRC outreach programme is being supported by other rights groups such as ZimRights, Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, as well as Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights.

Traditional leaders have always been blamed for partisan food distribution and ripping villagers off their livestock by charging hefty fines for minor offences.

However, Charumbira has been on record denying partisan food distribution in rural areas.

Mugwadi said most people were not aware of their rights, let alone the existence of the commission.

“People are not aware of the commission because we have not been visible due to lack of funding. We are supposed to have offices in each town and district, but we only have two regional offices in Harare and Bulawayo,” he said.

“Very few people also know of their rights, hence we are carrying out an outreach programme.”

Mugwadi said ZHRC had looked into and resolved 82% of the complaints they got when they established a secretariat in 2014.

“We got 558 complaints from the Public Protector, most of them we have resolved. Our complaints desk also directly handled close to 200 violations and we can say we have resolved 82% of them,” he said.

“Some of the violations were given recommendations or we referred those with criminal violations to the Police Commissioner-General, like the Hurungwe by-elections violence, where three people were arrested and the matter is pending at the courts.”