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Title: | Ukubhinya: Gender and Sexual Violence in Bulawayo, Colonial Zimbabwe, 1946-1956 |
Authors: | Benson, Koni Chadya, Joyce M. |
Year: | 2003 |
Periodical: | Zambezia (ISSN 0379-0622) |
Volume: | 30 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 108-133 |
Language: | English |
Notes: | biblio. refs., ills. |
Geographic terms: | Zimbabwe Southern Africa Great Britain |
Subjects: | gender relations colonialism sexual offences history 1940-1949 1950-1959 History and Exploration Women's Issues Law, Human Rights and Violence Urbanization and Migration Historical/Biographical Law, Legal Issues, and Human Rights Cultural Roles urbanization gender imperialism Rape women's rights Justice, Administration of |
External link: | https://d.lib.msu.edu/juz/776/OBJ/download |
Abstract: | This study is based on an analysis of 81, out of 303, cases of rape that were tried in the city of Bulawayo (present-day Zimbabwe) between 1946 and 1956. In their testimonies, poor and working-class African women spoke of their lived experiences of rape and provide valuable insights into the dynamics of a city undergoing rapid physical and social transformation. These stories include reflections of gender relations and power struggles, which informed, and were influenced by, urbanization. At the centre of these court records was struggle. African women were taking men who raped them to court. These were battles for the power to define the city, both in terms of behaviour, and the use of space. However, Bulawayo was a colonial city, and Europeans had appropriated the power to judge and determine punishment of all criminal offences including rape. The trials of rape cases provide a window into tensions between both the colonizer and the colonized, between African men and African women, and amongst African men. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. (Slightly revised version published in: Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 31, no. 3 (2005), p. 587-610.) [ASC Leiden abstract] |