Ukubhinya: Gender and Sexual Violence in Bulawayo, Colonial Zimbabwe, 1946–1956*

Abstract

This article draws on over 300 criminal court cases of rape and sexual assault of African women and girls for the District of Bulawayo between 1946 and 1956. The analysis of these records provides a rare opportunity to hear African women speaking about their lived experiences in a city undergoing rapid physical and social transformation. Within these stories of rape are reflections of gender relations and power struggles that informed, and were influenced by, urbanisation. This article therefore looks at sexual violence and changing African gender dynamics in relation to colonial urban influx control, segregation and mounting political and economic tensions. It explores the experiences of newcomers to the city, the colonial definition of twelve as the age of consent for African ‘women’, and the monetisation of sex as the justification for rape. We analyse African women's strategies of defiance and resistance to sexual assault, and focus on how they used the colonial courts. We also question the short- and long-term gendered and generational ramifications of colonial appropriation of the power to judge and determine punishment for all criminal offences including rape. This study therefore uses these testimonies of rape and sexual assault as windows of insight into the multiple battles for the power to define the city, both in terms of behaviour, and in terms of the use of space.