Tapestries of Hope (From Gazette)

Tapestries of Hope

3:58pm Wednesday 29th September 2010 in Woman

THE horror of Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe has been well documented.

But Betty Makoni, 39, lived through the brutality before she fled to start a new life in Essex.

Her story is now the basis for an American documentary called Tapestries of Hope, which explores life under Mugabe’s dictatorship.

She told her harrowing story to Louise Mackenzie.

THE village I grew up in was poor and hostile. I was in a group of ten young girls who used to help our families selling candles and other bits to earn some money.

During this time Zimbabwean men systematically raped us.

I knew it was wrong and I told my mother, but she could only bathe me in warm water and wash away the blood.

Rape was in the culture, but no one talked about it.

It was made worse by a persistent myth which tells HIV-positive men they can be cured by raping a virgin.

My mother was a victim of domestic violence and was later beaten to death by my father.

There were six children, four boys and two girls, in the family and we had to work to feed them.

I decided I needed an education, so I worked in a Roman Catholic school and had lessons there.

I was the only one to get educated out of the ten friends from my childhood. Seven of the girls died along the way.

I finished school in 1989. Zimbabwe was prosperous place after independence and there was a lot of hope.

I went to the University of Zimbabwe and studied English linguistics and Shona, our regional dialect.

I was 22 when I graduated in 1994 and I became a deputy teacher.

It was then I decided I wanted to do something to help the vulnerable young girls.

I started the Girl Child Network in 1995 to combat the widespread rape of young girls in Zimbabwe.

I was a teacher from 1995 to 1999 and in that time I saw many cases of girls being raped.

They would just disappear from school and I began to find out the reasons. I would talk to the girls and they started to open up and talk to me about what had happened.

I remember what I was like when it happened to me. I would run away and cry.

Travelling across Zimbabwe for eight years, documenting cases of rape, we reached the figure of 35,000 girls by 2002.

It was strange because I never thought of what I was doing as political. I was just helping the girls.

The Government did not back the campaign because a lot of it was happening in the village churches.

They called me a liar and an enemy of the state.

It’s not just Zimbaweans who have suffered in my home country.

In 2007 American filmmaker Michealene C Risley came to film a documentary about the network, which has subsequently become Tapestries of Hope.

We were arrested and accused of working for the CIA. They took all of her personal papers – notes on the documentary film.

We were imprisoned for two more days, without food and water.

Michealene was deported. However, we managed to hide the memory card with some of the 500 girls she had managed to film in the ten days.

I gave the memory card to someone and they crossed the boarder and posted the package to America from South Africa.

The film comes out in America this week.

In 2008 I was still kept under close observation by the secret service.

As tensions grew in Zimbabwe things got worse for me and I ended up at Mugabe’s law and order centre in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital.

About 23 armed men came to my house one night and threatened me with torture. They said I was a CIA agent.

At this point my office was ransacked and they took all the computers, reports, everything.

They didn’t attack me, but they were very frightening and would shout and hit the table.

They would get me in the morning and interrogate me till 10pm at night. This went on for ten days.

I could hear every kind of scream from the room next door where a man was being tortured. I saw the man later and I know he is not with us today.

I saw so many things I don’t even talk about today. There was no humanity there.

My three boys and husband Irvine were at home at this time and left helpless to do anything.

One day one of the guards said to me ‘Betty you must leave. It is going to get worse’, I got a bus to South Africa and then on to Botswana where I told authorities what had happened and I was given a house to rent.

From there, I continued the Girl Child Network and I had around 52 girls who crossed the border as the violence got worse.

This time, rape was different. It was a weapon of war and women of all ages were cut and abused very badly by the youth militia.

In 2009 my husband, who is an engineer, got a job with EDF in the UK and we moved to London.

I continued the network in Essex and it now covers USA, Canada, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Uganda as well.

I visit schools in Essex and the immigrant community, especially, are silent about what has happened to them. Just recently I went to a school and the girls slowly admitted they had been raped and hadn’t told anyone before.

It is so painful for these girls and I describe it as arriving with a heavy case of dirty laundry.

Talking about it is like washing the laundry, drying and ironing it until it is ok for them.

One of the hardest times for me was during an internet smear campaign started against me.

I was accused of stealing money from the network and the Zimbabwean press said I had been arrested by Essex Police. This is completely untrue and I felt a lot had been taken away from me and I had to fight to get it back.

I am so thankful to this country and I tell the girls here all of the time to use every opportunity they can here.

I am not over it yet but I am getting there. I love the work I do and that is my passion.

I would like to work more closely with the education system to help more girls coming to this country to adjust and succeed in life.

For details visit www.girl childnetworkworldwide.org Betty, lives in Stanford-le-Hope with her husband Irvine, sons Pinokuwanashe, 14, Spencer, 12 and Mukudzeishe, nine.

From her office in Westcliff, she helps girls from all over Essex who have fled to this country after suffering abuse abroad.