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Women in Interracial Marriage
Still facing discrimination in Zimbabwe
By Inter Press Service - Africa
Although the legal environment governing inter racial marriages
has greatly improved in Zimbabwe, women married to men of
different races still have to confront social and cultural barriers.
According to Dr Lovemore Madhuku, a constitutional law lecturer,
discriminatory marriage laws existed before Zimbabwe gained
independence from Britain in 1980. “The Marriages Act, which
denied people of different races, particularly blacks and whites
from marrying each other was repealed in the 1950s because it
was discriminatory and unconstitutional. However, whites were
not allowed to marry under the African Marriages Act, which
was another form of racial discrimination,” Madhuku, who is
also chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, a
civic organization advocating law reforms in Zimbabwe
explains.
Laws that discriminated against people on the grounds
of their race were repealed after Zimbabwe’s independence
in 1980, explained Madhuku. But after
independence, laws were enacted which discriminated
against people on the basis of gender. Of note was
the Citizenship Act, which allowed foreign females to
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