Zimbabwe’s soldiers and police have been fingered in an orgy of rape in which they worked with militia from President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party to allegedly sexually assault supporters of the former opposition MDC over the past decade, according to a new report. The report that calls for a government-led 'multi-sectoral investigation into politically motivated rape in Zimbabwe' was jointly produced by the Harare-based Research and Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) and self-help organisation Doors of Hope Development Trust.

The announcement that 5,000 new classrooms will be built thanks to a $140 million World Bank loan would come as welcome news at the Chitowo Primary School – if only the children sitting on the floors, perched on doors and in windows, even taking lessons in the dust beneath trees in the yard could hear it. The school, which offers eight primary classes from Standard One to Eigh in Dedza district, a rural area in central Malawi, is bursting at the seams. It has 1,400 pupils and only five classrooms.

The findings of an ongoing study being conducted by the Domestic Workers Research Project (DWRP) at the University of the Western Cape confirm that migrant domestic workers suffer arduous working conditions for low wages and are often sequestered behind their employers’ high walls, cut off from family and friends for long periods. 'The regulations that they lay down for you is not to bring anyone on the premises. I felt sometimes like I was in a prison cell,' said Hester Stephens, president of the South African Domestic Workers and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU).