Masters Dissertation

Many studies have focused on how mining activities have affected local communities however very few of them have examined the impact of the extractive industry on the livelihood activities of rural women. The extraction of minerals has caused massive environmental degradation as well as air, water and noise pollution. Women, because of their gender roles, […]

The study sought to establish the extent to which civil and registered customary marriages in Zimbabwe protect married women from or expose them to the risk of HIV/AIDS infection. It interrogates the susceptibility of married women to sociocultural practices and factors that violate their sexual and reproductive rights and thereby rob them of their sexual […]

There have been many discussions about how the livelihoods women, their families and ultimately their communities who are affected by mining operations, especially largescale operations, invade their rural home areas. However, they have focused mainly on the issue of women’s participation in mining. Usually, women who intend to participate in mining are already financially privileged. […]

In the wake of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis, school drop-out rates for girls is rapidly increasing and this study critically analyses how to protect the growing invisible and highly vulnerable workforce of poorly-educated girls between the ages of 12 and 15, many of whose parents force them to work illegally as domestic workers within and outside […]

While it is appreciated that Zimbabwe’s gender equality legal framework has improved, a great deal more needs to be achieved through its implementation especially in the distribution of communal lands of Zimbabwe. The allocation of this precious resource is still uneven and skewed towards men. Most rural women are struggling to fully access communal land […]

This dissertation explores solutions to failing micro and small businesses of informal women traders in the Chipata District of the Eastern Province of Zambia even though they receive the benefit of business loans. Although micro-finance providers exclusively target women traders in the informal sector, the researcher primarily uses the women’s law approach (WLA) to reveal […]

This dissertation explores how Zimbabwe’s criminal justice system, in particular the Regional Magistrates Courts in Harare, responds to teenage and adult rape cases. Using several complementary methodologies, in particular, the grounded women’s law approach, the researcher, relying on his unique inside knowledge and experience of the system as a Regional Prosecutor, critically investigates trial practices […]

In view of the growing prison population and the government’s inadequate budgetary funding of the Prisons Service, various options have been explored to find solutions to the problem. This study focuses specifically on the failure by most Magistrates to effectively implement section 8 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), Chapter 88 of the Laws of […]

Women’s substantive right to inherit land from their deceased husband’s estate and their ability to enforce that right through various dispute resolution mechanisms are serious problematic areas of the law that affect thousands of women who live under either customary or Islamic law in Ilemela District, Mwanza in Tanzania. This is because the perception of […]

Four years after the passing of Malawi’s Prevention of Domestic Violence Act, 2006 (the ‘PDVA’), the writer of this dissertation, a Magistrate, sets out to evaluate the quality and extent to which counselling is offered as a remedy to victims of DV (mostly women) and/or its perpetrators, their intimate (and mostly male) partners. By utilising […]