For those of you who dont know Tabitha Khumalo:SHE has been arrested 22 times, tortured so badly that her front teeth were knocked into her nose and had an AK-47 thrust up her vagina until she bled. Thabitha Khumalo’s crime: to campaign against a critical shortage of tampons and sanitary towels in Zimbabwe, one of the least talked about and most severe side-effects for women of the country’s economic crisis.
So desperate is the situation that women are being forced to use rolled-up pieces of newspaper. Zimbabwe already has the world’s lowest life expectancy for women — 34 — and Khumalo believes these unhygienic practices could make it drop to as low as 20 because infections will make them more vulnerable to HIV. “It’s a time bomb,” she said. The shortage is forcing schoolgirls to stay at home when they start menstruating. (MORE)
THE Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has finally taken delivery of a consignment of badly needed sanitary towels donated by well-wishers after paying $1.7 billion in import duty.
ZCTU secretary-general Wellington Chibebe said the labour body received the 19 tonnes of sanitary towels, which had been stuck in South Africa for over a month, last Saturday and would soon distribute them to the working women of Zimbabwe through its structures.
The delivery of the pads, which is part of the ZCTU's efforts to ease a crisis most Zimbabwean women are facing, came following an appeal by the Women's Advisory Council (WAC) to sympathisers in South Africa.
WAC had realised that sanitary pads were becoming scarce and that, where they could be found, they were being sold at exorbitant prices. (MORE)
WTF people, this is truly a sad day on our planet, when in this day age
women cant even get basic necessities like tampons. I am at a loss for words... Tampons, this should be some top level UN shit for real. This is straight outlandish, hell if i owned Tampax I'd give away 10 super tankers full of pads just on GP. Support our people, because we are dying faster than you think...Props to: This is Zimbabwe
Support: Dignity Period
"The battle for respect is a global event"
NARO%
