"If he does not hit you, he does not love you enough" is the sort of age-old 'truism' that Zimbabwe activists say gives men free rein to beat their wives and stops women complaining.
By Farai Shawn Matiashe
MUTARE, Zimbabwe (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Dressed in a miniskirt and blouse, Esther Kamupunga stood in semi-darkness waiting for men looking for sex - the latest Zimbabwean to lose her job in a deepening economic crisis, worsened by the new coronavirus.
When the first COVID-19 case was detected in March, Zimbabwe rapidly went into lockdown, and the 24-year-old single mother and waitress was laid off in the eastern city of Mutare. Life was better until the advent of this coronavirus. Our business came to a standstill due to lockdown . unfortunately I was one of the people who were retrenched, she said, shielding her face from passing car headlights.