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    HomeLocal NewsZimLockdown: Rights Commission urges govt to take care of special needs groups

    ZimLockdown: Rights Commission urges govt to take care of special needs groups

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    Harare, (New Ziana) – The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) said on Monday government must extend its welfare initiatives to special interest groups whose lives are perhaps worse affected by Covid-19 than their able bodied counterparts.

    Zimbabwe is under an indefinite Level 2 Covid-19 lockdown aimed at reducing the spread of the global disease that has to date infected 282 people in the country and killed four others.

    The ZHRC, a constitutional body, said it had through systems being used to monitor responses to the Covid-19 pandemic “noted human rights concerns peculiar to special interest groups such as women, children, the elderly and persons with disabilities.”

    “The Department of Social Welfare and other organisations providing food relief should extend their vulnerability assessment criteria beyond older persons and persons with disabilities, to include other vulnerable people who are constrained from fending for themselves by the national lockdown, such as pregnant and nursing mothers,” the ZHRC said.

    Government announced earlier it had mobilised over half a billion dollars for vulnerable communities but experts say the number of people in need of support was more than envisaged.

    A number of companies have either cut salaries or laid off their workforce owing to the effects of the lockdown and reduced business.

    The ZHRC said women, pensioners and people living with disabilities were bearing a heavier brunt of the lockdown.

    “The Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprise Development should intensify its empowerment programmes to all communities (urban and rural) where women are struggling to fend for their families and becoming victims of different forms of domestic violence,” the ZHRC said.

    Improved access to sexual and reproductive health facilities was also key especially for pregnant women, nursing mothers and the elderly, the commission said.

    Older persons, the ZHRC said, currently had “limited access to public assistance social welfare services such as food aid and subsidised medical care.”

    “Some of them indicated that they survive on vending but the income is not enough to sustain them and the orphaned or abandoned grandchildren whom they look after. However, as a result of lockdown, they were not able to embark on income generating activities,” the Commission said.

    With the ban on inter-city travelling except for essential services, pensioners had told the ZHRC they were failing to collect their monthly payouts.

    “Their plight was aggravated by the fact that their children who used to support them, were also not working because of the lockdown,” the ZHRC said.

    Inaccessibility of health facilities and drugs had resulted in some older persons resorting to unprescribed and untested herbs.
    New Ziana

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