Nearly half of Zimbabwean women abused

FactCheckZW Media Lab

CLAIM: At least 49% of ever-married adolescent girls and women aged 15-49 years have experienced some form of emotional, physical, or sexual violence committed by their current/recent partner.

SOURCE: UNFPA on X (formerly Twitter) account

VERDICT: True

Gender-based violence is defined as violence directed against a person because of that person’s gender or violence that affects persons of a particular gender disproportionately.

Violence against women is understood as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women. 

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)-Zimbabwe on 26 February 2024 posted a message on its X (formerly Twitter) account @UNFPA_Zimbabwe  which partly read: ‘At least 49% of ever-married adolescent girls and women aged 15-49 years have experienced some form of emotional, physical, or sexual violence committed by their current/recent partner.’

The Government of Zimbabwe in partnership with UNFPA launched the Women at the Centre Project in February 2024. The four-year project sponsored by a Japanese pharmaceutical company, Takeda,  focuses on providing support to gender-based violence (GBV) survivors.

The 2019 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), produced by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) on Table DV9: Forms of Spousal Violence, indicates that 49.4 percent of ever-married adolescent girls and women aged between 15 and 49 have suffered any form of emotional, physical or sexual violence committed by their current or most recent partners or husbands. According to the same report, physical and sexual violence accounts for 39, 6 percent of the cases while physical violence stands at 37.1 percent.