Tendai's story (2008): Tortured for telling the truth

It has been four long years since Tendai saw her two children.  They live in Zimbabwe only avoiding the government's murderous intentions by feigning allegiance to the Zanu PF party that raped and hounded their mother out of the country.

Tendai worked as a typist in a medical laboratory in the capital Harare and became aware of how pathologists were falsifying the post-mortem reports of people killed by ZanuPF officials.  Troubled by the number of false reports she saw, several of which she was ordered to type, Tendai spoke to other fellow Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) members. 

"The one I remember the most was of a man who had been shot in the head.  His post mortem recorded that he died of natural causes," says Tendai, who uses an assumed name to protect her family who remain in Zimbabwe.  "His relatives were asking for the report to be redone because he had a bullet wound so they knew it wasn't natural causes.  But the pathologist said there was nothing he could do.  He boasted that even if they went to Mugabe nothing would change.

"There was another report about an MDC spokesperson who was arrested for allegedly killing his wife.  He died in police custody.  The pathologist said it was suicide.  But it was so clear that he had been killed when in custody."

Walking home from an MDC rally in 2004, Tendai and her colleagues were stopped by a gang of ZanuPF youths.  Few of them managed to run, but Tendai was captured:  "They said they didn't care the others had gone because it was me they wanted, they called me by my name."

ZanuPF had found out that Tendai had informed others about the falsified reports.  She was blindfolded, handcuffed and driven to an abandoned cluster of houses being used to detain people.  Tendai would later learn that many had been killed there, and that she too had been sent there to be put to death.

Already weakened by the beatings en route to these houses, Tendai was thrown into a room where she could hear other women: "When I was put in the room, a first man came.  I had been tied up by the hands and feet and was blindfolded.  I was in a lot of pain from the beatings. He said he wanted to have sex with me. 

"My mouth was covered with the blindfold so I couldn't say anything.  He took off my clothes and raped me.  He said I was Tsvangirai's prostitute so why shouldn't he do the same.  Ten minutes later another man came in and raped me again."

Tendai was eventually left alone as the men who had raped her seemingly fled in a hurry.  When another man entered the room, she thought she was either about to be raped yet again or killed:  "He said he wanted to escape as well because he didn't understand why they were killing people and he was fed up.  He untied me.  I just told myself that whatever was going to happen would happen, I was going to die anyway and there was nothing I could do."

Tendai was led out of the building, past a room where she saw dead bodies lying and was told that if she didn't get out, she would be next, as there was "no place in this society for people like her". 

Stumbling through the bush, Tendai found her way to safety.  For almost three months she remained in hiding, recovering from the torture until she was fit enough to travel to the UK.

"When I came to the UK at the end of 2004 I came on a visitor's visa.  People were saying if I applied for asylum I would be sent back and I knew I just couldn't go back because I would be killed.  I hadn't been able to say goodbye to my mother or my two children when I left Zimbabwe.  They didn't know I had left until I called them from the UK.  I couldn't risk it.

"Since I left my family has been harassed by ZanuPF.  My brother has to attend ZanuPF rallies, they have had to put stickers in their windows and cars so that they don't look like the opposition.  My son has to go to ZanuPF youth meetings.  They are forced to do this, just as they are forced to go and vote.

"If Mugabe stays in power there is no future for Zimbabwe.  I don't see any hope.  If things were to change I wouldn't mind going back to Zimbabwe.  But as it is, I can't.  There was a time when they were saying people who were going back from Britain were being beaten as soon as they reached the airport.  People were being arrested and it was worse if they saw you were a refused asylum seeker from the UK."

The injuries Tendai suffered as a result of her torture have been documented in a forensic medico-legal report by doctors and lawyers at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (MF).  She is now waiting for a decision from the Home Office whether she will be protected in the UK as a Convention refugee or if she will be forced to return to Zimbabwe.