Our Everyday Essentials, The Unfulfilled Promises!
ZimRights Statement to Commemorate the International Human Rights Day
ZimRights joins the world in commemorating the International Human Rights Day under the resonant global theme, “Human Rights, Our Everyday Essentials.” The Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) – Zimbabwe’s first postindependence indigenous human rights movement acknowledges the commitments and human rights mechanisms that have been adopted and ratified by the government so far. However, ZimRights stands with the people of Zimbabwe to expose the glaring gaps between constitutional promises and the daily suffering of ordinary people.
Our work is grounded in the 250,000-strong grassroots membership that constitutes ZimRights – the ordinary Zimbabweans across all ten provinces, who daily experience the erosion of their dignity. Today, we report that our nation’s human rights deficit continues to deepen. The day comes, a day after we launched our People’s Human Rights Manifesto Monitoring Guide titled Between Promise and Reality- a people’s Audit of Election promises in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are compelled to reflect on the stark disconnect between elections promises – which seek to address our everyday essentials and our daily realities. The People’s Human Rights Manifesto (PHRM), developed ahead of the august 2023 elections, eloquently translates our constitutional rights into ten essential, daily needs. Yet, in 2025, these very essentials—our bread, our shelter, our dignity—remain out of reach for countless citizens, not due to fate, but because of systemic failures, negligence, and sometimes from the active violations by those entrusted with power.
The Manifesto was born from a collective voice, a pact demanding that leadership be measured by the quality of our daily lives. Today, that measurement reveals a profound deficit. Our “everyday essentials” are being eroded:
Our essential right to accountable governance is mocked by a persistent culture of impunity and opacity. The promise of accountability rings hollow when communities wait in vain for feedback forums from their Councillors and MPs, and when corruption scandals engulf public resources meant for clinics and schools, with little to no meaningful prosecution.
Our essential right to health is a nightmare for many. Quality healthcare remains inaccessible, with public health facilities suffering chronic drug shortages, broken equipment, and underpaid, demoralised staff. The right to emergency medical treatment is compromised by ambulance shortages and crumbling infrastructure, turning preventable tragedies into daily occurrences.
Our essential right to affordable and quality education is constantly undermined by the unfulfilled constitutional provision for free basic education in Zimbabwe. In most public schools, the quality is compromised by inadequate infrastructure and demoralized staff.
Our essential right to livelihoods is under siege. Policies that fail to protect savings from erosion, combined with a lack of support for informal traders and the biting unemployment, especially among the youth, strangle the means for families to secure their most basic needs.
Our essential right to basic amenities is being denied. Millions still wake up to dry taps, relying on unsafe water sources. Erratic electricity supplies disrupt lives and small businesses. The government and major local authorities’ failure to ensure consistent access to clean water and energy is a direct violation of our right to a decent standard of living.
Our essential right to expression and assembly is continuously threatened. The space for civic dialogue is shrinking, with peaceful community meetings and protests often met with unwarranted surveillance, intimidation, or dispersal by security forces. This climate of fear stifles the very dialogue needed to address our national challenges.
Our essential right to land and decent shelter is violated by forced evictions and displacements, often to make way for developments that do not benefit the communities. The lack of security of tenure and affordable, decent housing leaves thousands in perpetual vulnerability.
Our essential right to political choice is undermined by a persistent atmosphere of fear and patronage. Citizens report being excluded from aid and development projects due to their perceived political affiliation, a cruel politicisation of survival that fractures communities.
Our essential right to accountability is still a mirage. Our findings show that fewer than 15% of duty bearers hold regular feedback sessions, making leadership inaccessible after elections and rendering Section 194 (principles of public administration) meaningless. This opaque, unaccountable exercise of power fundamentally undermines democratic legitimacy and the social contract itself.
As we commemorate this Human Rights Day, we declare that our essentials are not mere aspirations; they are non-negotiable entitlements. The ten Asks of the People’s Manifesto are not a wish list but a blueprint for a just Zimbabwe. We therefore call upon every duty-bearer to remember the covenant of the Manifesto.
We call for a renewed commitment to action over rhetoric, to service over selfenrichment, and to the people over everything else. The power truly belongs to the people. We will continue to monitor, to speak out, and to organise. We will use the tools of the Manifesto to track promises and expose failures. We will build, from the grassroots up, a culture where human rights are not just celebrated one day a year but are lived and enjoyed every single day. Our struggle continues until every Zimbabwean can claim their everyday essentials.
Happy International Human Rights Day Zimbabwe
Issued by the ZimRights Information Department
info@zimrights.org
