Abstract
The paper seeks to highlight the challenges faced by women street vendors in Zimbabwe. The paper provides an overview of the brutal attitudes displayed toward women and young girl vendors by law enforcement agencies in Zimbabwe. Street vending is an important source of income for the poor in the developing world. Street vending activities contribute to the livelihoods of millions of people and to national wellbeing at large, especially in developing countries. Secondary sources including journals, newspapers and online news articles were used in the compilation of this study. These sources were analysed for any insights into women street vendors’ socio-economic status, police treatment of street vendors and working conditions. Street vendors experience arbitrary arrests, harassment, and confiscation of their wares and the government continues to move them out of the town and cities structures despite the unavailability of alternative accommodation. is a need for the government of Zimbabwe to see economic and social rights as a priority and the government should also protect women and girls from police brutality. Without the state’s protection, women and young girls who ply their trade in the street will remain in a state of harassment, beatings and arbitrary arrest by the police.
Highlights
Street vendors are an integral part of urban economies around the world, offering easy access to a wide range of goods and services in public spaces (Reed, 2019)
Recognising that the economy of Zimbabwe faces socioeconomic problems there must be efforts by the government to ensure that women and young girls in the informal sector are protected from police harassment and abuse
The harsh economic and socio-economic conditions in Zimbabwe require that restrictive street trading laws and coercive government actions against street traders be eliminated and stopped respectively
Summary
Street vendors are an integral part of urban economies around the world, offering easy access to a wide range of goods and services in public spaces (Reed, 2019). Recognising that the economy of Zimbabwe faces socioeconomic problems there must be efforts by the government to ensure that women and young girls in the informal sector are protected from police harassment and abuse. This forms the goal of this study. Raids by the police threaten the viability of informal street vending which is a vital source if income for poor women and young girls Such repressive actions have been carried to vicious extremes, when police, chase vendors from the city and even torture and in the process kill vendors. Many cities experience cycles in which local authorities tolerate, regulate, and evict street vendors in accordance with economic trends, election cycles and other urban management pressures (WIEDO, 2019)
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