By Linda Mujuru
Human rights activists have blamed weak institutions for the violation of human rights in Zimbabwe . These sentiments were raised at a tweetable discussion hosted by 263 chat on 13 May 2015 with the hashtag #eyesonhr.
One of the presenters at the tweetable discussion, Abel Chikomo the Director of the NGO Forum said, “we have weak institutions resulting in no accountability and lack of respect for Human rights”. Chikomo said that the fact that the local police have not done anything to ensure that Itai Dzamara is brought back home safe is just one case amongst a lot of human rights abuses that continue to take place in Zimbabwe.
Steven Feldstein the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) said, “Human rights belong to no country, and human rights universally belong to all of us”. However, in Zimbabwe the enactment of the new constitution has not resulted in the improvement of the human rights environment. The government of Zimbabwe needs to fully and impartially enforce domestic laws by holding accountable all those responsible for human rights abuses.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission Chairman, Elasto Mugwadi said, “lack of resources affects human rights situation in Zimbabwe. The ZHRC was set up in 2009 under the inclusive government to investigate human rights abuses following the bloody 2008 elections. According to a Human Rights Watch 2014 report, while the establishment of an independent and credible human rights commission is set out in the new constitution, there are significant concerns with the commission. The report states that the law establishing the commission states that it can only investigate alleged human rights abuses since February 2009. This prevents the commission from investigating previous serious crimes.
Jestina Mukoko the Director of the Zimbabwe Peace project encouraged Zimbabweans to take a lead role in exercising their constitutionally guaranteed human rights. She alluded that the main obstacle to the exercise of human rights in Zimbabwe is fear of being victimized and the lack of knowledge on proper channels to take if human rights are violated.
