News stories by Ignatius Banda, page 10

A new type of migration is taking place in Zimbabwe. While in the past people crossed the borders into South Africa and Botswana seeking work and fleeing from their repressive circumstances, now a silent migration of HIV-positive children seeking antiretroviral treatment (ART) is taking place.

Dispersing feasting flies and angry residents from a manhole cover spewing sewage from people’s homes and into the road: another day in the working life of Njabulo Siziba. It's a dirty, frustrating, thankless job as a civil engineer for Bulawayo city council, but help is at hand for Siziba and the city he serves.

As African Union heads of state consider child and maternal health at the 2010 summit in Kampala, Uganda, the perennial question of user fees has reared its head in Zimbabwe. Fees for services are opening a growing gap between policy and implementation in maternal health care in the Southern African country.

At a local maternity clinic in one of Bulawayo’s high density suburbs, midwives are at pains to explain to a pregnant 15-year-old girl why she must be tested for HIV before she gives birth.

A resurgence of interest in dried traditional vegetables has opened up a market opportunity for women entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo.

'People used to mock me, saying that I am competing with dogs for bones, but these taunts do not deter me,' says Sibongile Mararike with no sign of rancour.

Gugulethu Mkhwananzi is another one of the many unemployed women who have become features of everyday life in Bulawayo’s poor working class suburbs as she moves from house to house, looking for 'rusted gold': scrap metal.

As Zimbabwe embarks on writing a new constitution with the countrywide collection of public submissions starting on Jun. 23, not all women are upbeat about the process.

Twelve-year-old Tapuwa Bakare* darts through the traffic as irate motorists hoot at him and the tyres of speeding vehicles screech to a halt to avoid hitting him. Miraculously, the box filled with sweets and chewing gum that he carries does not fall from his grasp.

Companies from the European Union and the U.S. will not feature at this year’s Zimbabwe International Trade Fair despite the formation of a government of national unity last year.