09/01/2004

Female former farm workers are also at additional risk. Many female farm workers were not paid mandatory "severance packages" by their employers when their farms were seized. Many of the men have left the farms to migrate to neighboring countries in search of work, leaving their wives and children behind. Other male heads of household have died in the political violence and left behind widows. Some former female farm workers without an adult male in the household have had to resort to risky strategies to survive. Some have turned to commercial sex work and others have formed sexual alliances with farm foremen or new settlers in order to be guaranteed some sort of farm employment to feed their children. "It is hard to be a woman in this place," one of these women who currently live in a squatters camp outside of Harare told RI, "I was a permanent worker on a farm but I did not get a severance package. My husband died from TB. I do not receive any special help as a widow. I gather firewood for about $Z 500 (10 cents) a bunch. I am worse off here - there is not much difference in living conditions between here and the farm."