The Effects of Structural Adjustment in Zimbabwe - Mary Sandasi
In 1990/1991 Zimbabwe embarked upon economic structural adjustment programmes.
By 1992, some companies closed down and laid off their workforce. People laid off were family men, and in most cases these companies could not afford to pay retrenchment packages. Some of the retrenched people lived from hand to mouth. The age groups retrenched had no land to till. To most of the retrenchees who went to their rural homes they had to tend pieces of land for tilling. For those who remained in the cities, they joined the thousands who are the urban poor. They no longer could afford decent accommodation and nutrition and treatment. Families were forced to share one or two rooms. These problems continued year after year . The prices for foodstuffs continued to rise. Out of frustration in December 1997, the masses staged a demonstration which gave rise to the food riots. During the riots, shops were looted, busses and cars were reduced to ashes. The riot police were outdone by the masses as some were made to taste their own medicine. For the first time the army joined the police force to quell the disturbances. Armoured cars and helicopters were seen in the high density suburbs where the majority of the poor reside. The cost of living still plummeted. Important budgets that services the majority of the people, especially women and children were cut by the government. These were the budgets for education and health.
Because people had less food or could not afford nutritious food, their immunity to illness was reduced, and there were epidemics like HIV, TB and STIs. Let me share with you now a true story of the effects of the structural adjustments in Zimbabwe. Joseph Kamombe was working as a machinist for a company that made blankets. He was a father of 4; three boys and a girl aged 15 when the company closed down. Joseph and his family owned a four room house but three months after the retrenchment they rented out two rooms to two other families to raise money for food, The problem of overcrowding was created. Their daughter Esther dropped out of school, and she fell pregnant tow years later. This family struggled to keep their bodies and souls together. Later Joseph had TB and although he was on treatment, he could not eat well so he died. His wife was stressed so much that she got ill. She was diagnosed as being HIV positive and died of AIDS related illnesses. Esther their daughter who had been forced into commercial sex work to provide for her brothers is now terminally ill with AIDS.
AIDS in Zimbabwe is said to be killing 2000 people every week. This quilt is being made by women at grassroots level. They started off in 1996 by picking out headlines in papers that affected their health. They are writing the history of how they are denied access to essential services by policies that militate against their survival.
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