of the Women Network (WN). In fact, the police have been incessantly criticized for chronic failure to
act effectively against SGBV. This can be possibly accounted for by the police’s operational procedure
inclined to preoccupation with “what is routinely important” rather than “what works.” In response to
this, and in line with the women’s bill of rights – the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) – the Zimbabwe women in policing established the Zimbabwe
Republic Police Women Network as a convergence zone to cooperate, connect, and empower each other
to serve and protect rural victims of SGBV. The Women Network has become a platform which
encourages critical thinking of the mutually reinforcing link between patriarchal repression, gender justice
needs, and the significance of investing in capacities to end gender-based violence. As their compass, WN
had loftily modelled their vision and objectives to include being “the most empowered and uplifted women
police officers in the world by the year 2017” guided by organising principles of “exemplary leadership,
compassion, accountability, professionalism, and teamwork” (Zimbabwe Republic Police Women
Network, 2012). However, the establishment of WN and its decentralised model of consensus making
counterpoised the dominant and traditionally held centralised command-and-control approaches pervasive
in policing worldwide.
Targeting SGBV in patriarchal communities has been like entering into alien and unfamiliar territories
because the resources and skills required were beyond WN’s reach. The WN was then compelled to
envision the solution and action plan against available strength, capacities, and resources from which to
implement SGBV interventions. It then decided to take three critical steps: education, resource
mobilization, and campaign blitz through innovative operations.
Education: Realising the skill set from the institution was barely sufficient to effectively navigate and to
align its strength and aspirations, WN leadership, with the help of the Commissioner General of Police,
has fostered a collaborative training with NGO professional communities and academic research
institutions. For the latter, WN members were subjected to rigorous Conflict Transformation, Leadership,
and Community Policing and Dialogue training programmes as a way of developing an evidence base on
the link between crime, justice, and rights-based policing. There is an extensive body of theoretical literature
and empirical evidence which shows an added-value link between academic institutions and policing, in
particular on collating and analysing evidence – given the drive towards evidence based policing. Skills
acquired from academic institutions have catapulted women police’s confidence to break masculinity in
rural settings as well as the ZRP organisation, by successfully negotiating for their inclusion in the male
dominated units, such as Sub Aqua, Transport, and Dogs Sections, and UN Peacekeeping missions.
Resource Mobilization: What stands out unique about the ZRP WN has been their innovativeness in
designing poverty alleviation entrepreneurial projects for female police, with part of the financial and
material proceeds deployed to tackle the SGBV menace. The women police have been operating in a
context of the worst hyperinflation of all times, which reached 87.9 sextillion percent (Hanke, 2008) before
the final collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar in 2009. In response, they decided to combat poverty of female
officers through self-sustenance economic stability programmes with entrepreneurial income generating
projects. Their projects have ensured that “at least 95% of female police members engaged in one or more
income generating projects individually or as a group with a view to improving the overall quality of
women’s lives.” This involves engaging in massive mixed economy projects such as mining, crop
husbandry, poultry production, fish farming, piggery, cattle fattening, goat rearing, apiculture, retailing, and
catering services. It should be highlighted that the WN has continued partnering with academic and
professional institutions to re-tool and re-skill themselves with best practices in farming, project planning,
financial hygiene, and marketing. It is unusual for the police institutions to take poverty alleviation as their
specific duty to improve the qualitative lifestyle to ensure members continue to render effective service
delivery on SGBV related crimes. Although engaging in economic activities might appear a shift from their
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