On a weekly basis, an average of 42 registered marriages are being annulled in Harare alone with potentially thousands more going unrecorded as the majority of marriages are customary with no certificates. This translates to at least 2500 divorces in Harare alone. Legal experts and organisations that work with women attributed the increase in divorce to prevailing tenuous socio-economic and political conditions.
According to reports past divorces at the High Court in Harare and Bulawayo alone, were as follows:
By September 2015 – 1 102 divorces
2014 – 475 divorces
2013 – 473 divorces
2012 – 425 divorces
Danai Chirawu, a lawyer with the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA) said:
One of the biggest causes of divorce is domestic violence and this domestic violence is not only limited to physical abuse. It includes emotional and economic abuse. Infidelity is also another cause of divorce because the type of law that we are dealing with is civil in nature, it’s monogamous and that in itself results in divorce.
More: Daily News
Back to top