Zimbabwe Gender Commission chairperson Margaret Sangarwe
CLAIM: Twenty-two women are raped daily in Zimbabwe, according to the Zimbabwe Gender Commission.
VERDICT: True. Official crime statistics show that, on average, at least 20 cases of rape have been recorded in the country daily since 2014.
According to NewsDay, the Zimbabwe Gender Commission chairperson, Margaret Sangarwe, 22 women are raped daily in the country.
“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,” Sangarwe is quoted as saying during an awareness campaign ahead of the commemoration of this year’s 16 days of activism against gender violence.
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.
Conclusion
The Zimbabwe Gender Commission chairperson’s assertion that “22 women are raped daily” falls within the ballpark of official crime statistics which show an average of at least 20 rapes per day.
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