This dissertation focuses on the harm suffered by teenage girls who, often forced
into early marriages by poverty, must first engage in the customary practices of
initiation ceremonies followed by participation in highly ritualized dance vigils.
Evidence from a wide range of sources analysed in the context of various
methodologies, in particular the Women’s Law Approach, testifies loudly to the
serious harm caused, primarily, to their health and education as a result of the
growing abuses of these practices. In order to protect and realize the human rights
of these vulnerable young women in terms of local and international HR
instruments which bind Zimbabwe, the writer does not suggest abolishing the
practices, but rather reforming them internally by educating their adult overseers.