A Zimbabwean organisation that works with the girl child has warned that the country is confronting a femicide crisis, after at least 13 women and children were killed in domestic settings in the space of four months.

Shamwari Yemwanasikana issued the alarm in a statement on Thursday, 24 September 2026, saying the deaths were recorded between June and September this year in places including Chikanga, Nkulumane, Southlea Park, Shamva, Hatfield, Glen View and Darwendale. A Zimbabwean family living in the United Kingdom was also affected.

The organisation said the pattern of killings shows that homes have ceased to be safe spaces for women and girls, and called on the State to treat intimate partner murder as an emergency rather than a series of isolated domestic disputes.

Victims include a pregnant woman, a police officer and two young girls

Among those killed were a woman who was pregnant, a serving police officer, a mother and her two daughters, and two girls aged just five and two years old.

Shamwari Yemwanasikana said the killings were not confined to any single province or social class, and that several involved weapons such as hammers, axes, firearms and fire, suggesting a level of premeditation and brutality that distinguishes them from ordinary household quarrels.

According to the organisation, disputes that begin over relatively minor matters, including childcare arrangements and other family disagreements, are increasingly ending in the violent deaths of women.

Children left behind after witnessing the killings

The group said its deepest concern is now child protection. Many of the children who survived these attacks watched their mothers being murdered, and are now orphaned, traumatised and exposed to further harm.

It warned that these children face neglect, stigma and exploitation, and are frequently moved between relatives without any structured care plan. For an organisation whose mandate is to empower the girl child, the loss of a mother in this way is a direct threat to a girl’s future, the statement said.

Calls for intervention at the highest level

Shamwari Yemwanasikana has asked the Zimbabwe Gender Commission to use its constitutional mandate to escalate the crisis to the Office of the President and Cabinet, Parliament and the Ministry of Women Affairs, so that intimate partner murders can be formally declared a national emergency.

The organisation also urged the Department of Social Welfare, the Victim Friendly Unit and their partners to move urgently to provide psychosocial support, safe shelter and long-term care arrangements for the surviving children, arguing that their right to life, education and healing must be guaranteed.

The appeal points to a gap between Zimbabwe’s existing legal and policy framework on gender-based violence and what is actually delivered on the ground, particularly when it comes to protecting children after a parent is killed.

Pressure building over domestic violence deaths

The statement lands in the same week that police and courts across the country were dealing with a range of violent incidents, reinforcing public concern about the scale of interpersonal violence in Zimbabwean communities.

Advocates argue that femicide is not a private matter. They contend that when a woman is killed in her own home, the consequences ripple outward: children are pushed into informal care arrangements, household incomes collapse, and the risk of further abuse rises.

What Shamwari Yemwanasikana is now demanding is not simply sympathy, but a coordinated national response, one that treats the killing of women and girls by partners and family members as a public emergency requiring political attention, funding and sustained enforcement.