By Staff Reporter
A total of 30 women and girls are raped daily in Zimbabwe calling for the urgent need to enact water tight measures to end sexual abuse crimes in the country, National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe (NPAZ) has revealed.
Data from the NPAZ shows that at least 30 rape cases are reported countrywide daily, most of them involving children. Statistics have indicated a rise in child abuse, with nearly 20 000 cases recorded countrywide in the past year.
The current stats indicate an upward increase from yesteryear’s figures which stood at 22 according to the Zimbabwe Gender Commission.
“Twenty two women are raped daily in Zimbabwe, one woman is abused every 75 minutes and an average of 646 women are being sexually-abused monthly and one in three girls is raped or sexually assaulted before they reach the age of 18,” said the ZGC.
Crime data from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat), compiled from police records, show a 74% jump in rape cases between 2010 and 2018.In 2010, 4,450 rape cases were recorded. Last year, there were 7,738 recorded rape cases.
The 2018 figure translates to an average 21.2 rape cases per day.The first two months of 2019 recorded 636 rape cases in January and 625 in February.Since 2010, the highest number of rapes was reported in 2016, when 8069 cases were recorded, giving a daily average of 22.1.
