Hoping without Hope: Murambatsvina – Ten Years On
By Ukuthula Trust & Solidarity Peace Trust
Bulawayo, 6th October 2015
There is desperation. It’s hope without hope. You appear to have a job when in real terms you don’t have a job. You get up and dress every day and go to town and see people passing your stand, hoping maybe you will sell something.
This report is the fifth in a series by the same authors, tracking the impact of Operation Murambatsvina (OM) on the lives and livelihoods of Zimbabweans, in particular in Matabeleland. Once more, we have in many cases managed to relocate specific families and have updated how they have coped, or not coped, with life over the last ten years. We believe this longitudinal research is important as it conveys the lasting impact of gross human rights violations such as those epitomized by OM, as well as providing insight into the current functioning of the informal sector and housing challenges.
The introductory section places the report in the broader socio-economic context. Tracing the damage done by OM over the last decade remains topical at a point where the government of Zimbabwe and the steadily increasing urban vending community are once more at loggerheads. Throughout 2015, there have been running battles between vendors in Harare and the police, and ultimatums issued for vendors to decentralise from Harare’s streets. Yet, the broader economic context is that out of 6,300,000 people in employment in Zimbabwe, approx. 5,900,000 are employed informally. Clearly, once more hounding vendors off the streets is not a solution to the nation’s prevailing economic catastrophe when alternative employment does not exist.
Rights reserved: Please credit the Solidarity Peace Trust as the original source for this material republished on other websites. Please provide a link back to http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/download/report-files/Hope%20without%20hope%206%20october%202015.pdf for this report
This article can be cited in other publications as follows: Ukuthula Trust & Solidarity Peace Trust (2015) Hoping without Hope: Murambatsvina – Ten Years On. Durban: Solidarity Peace Trust
![In Hopley Farm, Harare, 8,500 adults live in makeshift housing: out of 2,000 school age children, 75% are out of formal school. [July 2010]](https://solidaritypeacetrust.org/wp-content/gallery/a-fractured-nation/image063.jpg "In Hopley Farm, Harare, 8,500 adults live in makeshift housing: out of 2,000 school age children, 75% are out of formal school. [July 2010]")
