{in the news} Zimbabwe's Women

A rusted wire fence divides the old Zimbabwe from the new. On the one side lies Effie Malamba; born in 1901 she was buried beneath a granite headstone 90 years later. On the other is Sylvia Ncube; born in 1974 she was laid to rest just 32 years later. The wire separates Bulawayo's old Hyde Park cemetery from the extension opened this February. Effie lies amid ordered ranks of stone epitaphs. Sylvia lies in a chaos of churned earth. All around her the mounds of mud and stones, garlanded with plastic flowers, tell the story of the shocking disintegration of Zimbabwe, which now has the lowest life expectancy for women anywhere in the world: 34.

The reasons for this plunge are several. Zimbabwe has found itself at the nexus of an AIDS pandemic, a food crisis and an economic meltdown that is killing an estimated 3,500 people every week. That figure is more than those dying in Iraq, Darfur or Lebanon. In war-torn Afghanistan, where women's plight has received global attention, life expectancy is still above 40.

Zimbabwe is now a place haunted by incomprehensible numbers: 85 per cent of the population living in poverty; 80 per cent unemployment; 90 per cent HIV infection rates in the army and most unbelievably, 2,000 per cent inflation.

Eighteen months ago the government launched operation Murambatsvina - Drive Out the Trash - a vicious offensive aimed at the poorest sectors of society. Hundreds of thousands of families were made homeless in slum clearances and street vendors were arrested, robbed and driven out of business. Shari Appel, from the NGO Solidarity Peace Trust, says that trauma is killing people before their time: "The stress and misery mean people are keeling over and dying. The health system has totally collapsed. Now access to education is going the same way and girls are the first to miss out. In the overcrowding, domestic violence and sexual abuse are rife."

Read the rest of Daniel Howden's report here.