A Zimbabwean girls’ rights organisation has called on the State to declare intimate partner killings a national emergency, warning that homes across the country have turned into the most dangerous places for women and girls.
Shamwari Yemwanasikana said in a statement issued on Thursday, 24 September 2026, that at least 13 women and children were killed in domestic settings between June and September this year, describing the pattern as a femicide crisis rather than a series of isolated domestic disputes.
Deaths recorded across seven communities — and one abroad
The organisation listed Chikanga, Nkulumane, Southlea Park, Shamva, Hatfield, Glen View and Darwendale among the areas where women and children lost their lives in their own homes during the four-month period. The toll also reached beyond Zimbabwe’s borders, with a Zimbabwean family in the United Kingdom losing a relative in a domestic killing.
Those killed included a woman who was pregnant, a serving police officer, a mother and her two daughters, and two young girls aged five and two.
According to the organisation, the attacks were carried out with hammers, axes, firearms and fire, and in several cases began as minor disagreements over childcare or other family matters before escalating into lethal violence.
Children left behind become the second casualty
Much of the organisation’s concern now centres on the children who survive such killings. It said many of them watched their mothers being murdered and are left orphaned, traumatised and exposed to further harm — including neglect, stigma, exploitation and being passed between relatives without adequate care.
Shamwari Yemwanasikana, which exists to empower the girl child, argued that the consequences ripple forward for generations: a girl who grows up watching her father kill her mother has her own future destroyed as well.
Demands directed at the Zimbabwe Gender Commission
The organisation wants the Zimbabwe Gender Commission to act decisively and use its constitutional mandate to push the issue into higher offices — specifically the Office of the President and Cabinet, Parliament and the Ministry of Women Affairs — so that intimate partner murders are formally declared a national emergency.
It also urged the Department of Social Welfare, the Victim Friendly Unit of the Zimbabwe Republic Police and their partners to move urgently on psychosocial support, safe shelter and long-term care plans for surviving children, arguing that those children’s rights to life, education and healing must be guaranteed.
Why the framing matters
Zimbabwe already has legislation criminalising domestic violence, and the Zimbabwe Gender Commission is a constitutional body tasked with investigating and addressing gender-based discrimination and abuse. What campaigners argue is missing is the level of urgency and coordinated resourcing that a formal emergency declaration would unlock — from policing and prosecution to counselling, shelter and child protection.
Activists have long warned that cases recorded by police understate the true scale of gender-based violence, because many incidents are settled within families or never reported. The latest figures cited by Shamwari Yemwanasikana add pressure on authorities to treat killings in the home as a national security and public health concern, not a private matter.
The organisation’s intervention comes as Zimbabwe continues to grapple with a broader pattern of violence against women and children, and it places the spotlight squarely on the institutions — the courts, the police, social welfare and the gender machinery — that are meant to protect them.