Plight of female prisoners

Catherine Murombedzi
Ms GUMISAYI Bonzo, a founding member and director of ZMWHSO, a trust made up of women who served time for crimes committed, speaks on committing crime, facing the music, why and how women end up behind bars and picking herself up and walking with her head up high to move on. Just having the courage to speak up after correctional service and the way forward must be applauded. Our reporter Catherine Murombedzi had a one on one interview with Gumi and here she speaks.

CM: Who is ZMWHSO?
GB: Zimbabwe Mighty Women of Hope Support Organisation is a registered trust of HIV-positive women and HIV-positive ex-inmates. It was founded in 2010 and registered in 2011. Our patron is Mrs Miriam Chikukwa, the Minister of State for Harare Metropolitan Province. Our doors remain open for new members who fall in the same category as life is hard for an ex-convict, what more being HIV positive at the same time.

CM: Why a Trust?
GB: We came up with a trust because we needed society to hear us. We also wanted to reach out to many HIV-positive ex-inmates, prisoners and vulnerable children. The only vehicle that carried weight was through a trust as we also needed to be guided by the laws which protect these most vulnerable groups.

CM: What drove you to form an organisation?
GB: I was diagnosed with HIV in 1998. Being a single mother and out of employment I ended up engaging in dirty deals because I wanted to feed my family. I had two children and two more dependants who were left by my sister who had died from an AIDS-related illness.
Poverty and lack of information led me to realise that HIV will never come to an end as long the HIV-positive women are not empowered with life skills to support themselves.
I was arrested for failing to pay back money I owed to several people and was incarcerated for two months at Chikurubi Female Prison where I started a support group of HIV-positive inmates.
At Chikurubi Female Prison I found out that women committed crimes not because they wanted to but they were forced by circumstances and dire poverty.

CM: What keeps you going?
GB: Being open about my status and my experience at Chikurubi Female Prison. Being able to deal with self stigma through counselling and questioning my thinking. Support from family members, friends and the community. Having people around me who share the same vision with me, that of empowering HIV-positive women and ex-inmates is what keeps me going. Being an ex-con and being HIV positive you face a lot of stigma and discrimination. You can’t access loans from the bank. You cannot be employed because of your criminal record regardless of prisons being regarded as correctional centres. I balance the act by telling myself to love what is and to live in the NOW and be in God’s business.

CM What are you doing to empower yourselves?
GB: We are teaching life skills to ex-inmates. We train them to do what they love most. Some are into nutritional gardening where they plant herbs and dry them and make herbal teas for sale in pharmacies.
Some ex-inmates are into arts and crafts. They are making African jewellery, bags, beads, knit, crotchet and make many more products. We have been exhibiting at Sanganai Expo, HIFA and UNWTO and have been able to look after our families from the proceeds.

CM: Does family and community see you in that light as breadwinners?
GB: My family supports me and have been my first medication when it comes to my CD4 count going up. I live a stress-free life. The community does not accept me when I tell them that I am an ex-inmate. They don’t trust you even if you are coming up with a noble idea.
I manage the rejection by not being into other people’s business. What they think about me is their business if I take that it means that I am being into their business and I will be stressed.
When I came out of Chikurubi Female Prison I went around asking for donations to take back to my fellow inmates I had left. Some were serving from six to 20 years and have no relatives who visit them. I approached the Mayor’s Cheer Fund, the Indian community and the Presidential Fund which helped our organisation.