Moses Matenga
Norton Member of Parliament Temba Mliswa was left seething with anger after the Zimbabwe Gender Commission failed to deal with the issue of alleged sexual abuse of referees by some ZIFA officials.
The commission’s report to Parliament failed to deal with allegations of sexual abuse of female referees raised by a recent report and investigated by FIFA angering sports enthusiast Mliswa who accused ZIFA and the world football governing institution of letting down women.
“The abuse which women have faced, especially sexual abuse allegations, have not been seen to be taken seriously,” Mliswa said.
“FIFA came up with a report which seems not to support what happened. I say so because FIFA itself is renounced for sexual abuse; it is a cartel. So, you wonder if these people are sports administrators or they are in sport to sexually abuse women.”
“That is the question which is there. Are they sexual abusers or they are sports administrators because they seem to have forgotten their role of running football and now sexually abusing women which becomes difficult?”
He said since the issue of alleged abuse of females in sport remained hanging, parents were now afraid to send children for sporting activities.
“No wonder why you see that even as parents, we are scared to send our children, the girl child, to these hyenas because they will be eaten up. No wonder why there is no participation of the girl child in this country in terms of sport because of these people. So, the issue of sexual abuse in sport is quite serious and what is important is that FIFA itself was supposed to stand for the women of Zimbabwe and it was about time that the sexual harassment was discussed because where there is no justice, a lot of people suffer.”
“FIFA knew about these sexual scandals of Zimbabwe two years ago and that is the reason why besides the misappropriation of funds which these administrators are alleged to have had, the aspect of sexual abuse is serious. To me, they have not been held accountable,” Mliswa added.
“I do not know why the Gender Commission has not at all mentioned that. Why is the Gender Commission not bringing it up?”
“ZIFA has done it, it has been swept under the carpet. FIFA has come, it has been swept under the carpet. The Gender Commission which is supposed to be outstanding has also swept it under the carpet. So what role are they playing if they are not able to bring these issues to the fore?”
“Today is a dark day for women in sport because they were looking up to the Gender Commission to be able to expose this, mention it and to also give what measures have been put in place to ensure that this will not happen again.”
