What are the grounds of divorce in Zimbabwe?

Answer 1

Diaspora precipitates high divorce rate in Zimbabwe, (The Sunday & Mirror, 2005-03-06):-Divorce rates in Zimbabwe continue to escalate, with High Court statistics indicating that in 2004 alone, an excess of 800 divorce cases were recorded, translating to a staggering average of 67 cases in a month. Indications are that the divorce rates have been on a gradual increase in the past two years, with 2003 having recorded an average of 45 cases per month. Speaking during the opening of the High Court circuit in Masvingo in February this year, High Court Judge, Justice Lawrence Kamocha said in order to cope with the backlog, the court had now set every Thursday for unopposed divorce cases, which he said deeply worried the court. Sociologists believe that among the major causes of divorce in Zimbabwe today is the "forced" separation of married couples - often by circumstances beyond their control - with one partner going abroad in pursuit of the proverbial greener pastures. Justice Kamocha also noted this development, saying: "The causes of the breakdowns of marriages are varied but some of those that feature prominently are that of young couples who marry and shortly afterwards one of the spouses leaves the country for the Diaspora in the hope that the other spouse will follow in due course. He added that in some cases things failed to go according to plan and trouble then sets in, saying that arrangement was not "healthy" as it often led to splits. Although there are no readily available statistics of people whose divorces in Zimbabwe have been caused by the move to the Diaspora, there are indications that such a trend has become entrenched. In some instances, the spouse who would have spent several years in the Diaspora returns to find the other spouse already 'taken' - owing to a variety of reasons. A sociologist and gender activist in Harare, Laura Machinga, said when married people live apart for more than a year, it becomes very difficult to sustain that marital union because the spouses have to be there for one another all the time. "In as much as the two spouses would communicate through the phone or the more popular electronic mail, that is not good enough to sustain a marriage. Sometimes the physical presence supersedes everything. So partners who live apart often tend to feel vulnerable, lonely and exposed to such an extent that when someone else approaches them, they may not be able to resist," she said. In some instances, individuals who secure entry into the UK, a favourite foreign destination among Zimbabweans, find themselves in a precarious situation and on the verge of deportation, they enter marriages of convenience with British nationals in a desperate bid to avert their deportation back home. Sometimes last year the British authorities introduced new drastic measures to curb the sham marriages, which have been popular among immigrants, with home secretary, David Blunkett, promising to clamp down on those who use sham marriages to stay in the UK and evade Immigration laws. As is with most such "sham" marriages, the couples may not live together but when the spouse who would have been left home gets word about it, they often consider effecting divorce proceedings. The high numbers of divorce cases are despite that in Zimbabwe, one cannot easily secure a divorce owing to the countless bottlenecks encountered in the process. Machinga said one of the reasons why divorce cases were on the increase is the empowerment of women. "Women have managed to acquire power through their education and careers so they no longer have to depend on their husbands for their livelihood, and that makes it easier for them to easily consider divorce as an option when things get bad. Today South African women are acquiring more power educationally, economically and socially. The society is also becoming more tolerant to divorced women than before. Many people are now starting to recognise and accept egalitarianism," one South African woman was quoted saying. Although some analysts cite people who get married for the wrong reasons, others say those who marry without really knowing each other were more prone to divorce. "People long for love, stability and security, but perhaps the two parties don't know each other as well as they think they do and once they are married all the little shows they put on come crashing down, revealing the less than perfect people behind them. It's a trap of idealism," Machinga said. Love without responsibility also seems to becoming fashionable because with free sex, advertised sex from the media all the time, together with the pressure from society, the ever growing rat race in modern societies and the realisation that people can get benefits usually preserved for married couples for free or at an affordable price at any corner, people no longer take it seriously. ----