Musasa Project, a non-governmental women's human rights organization, says domestic violence in Zimbabwe has reached crisis levels, adding the continuing collapse of the economy could be a major contributor to the problem.
The group says from January to October, 9,000 cases of domestic violence were reported to the group's Harare office alone.
Musasa Project last year recorded 15,000 of gender-based violence cases countrywide.
The women’s rights group says it seems like awareness campaigns are not working.
The organization noted that 70 percent of the cases that they are dealing with involve girls between 11 and 14 years.
Musasa Project director Netty Musanhu said the economic crisis is straining family ties.
According to the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), Zimbabwe’s economy remains in a fragile state, with an unsustainably high external debt and massive deindustrialization and informalisation.
This economic slowdown the bank says is due to “liquidity challenges (e.g. the lack of and high cost of capital and revenue underperformance), outdated technologies, structural bottlenecks that include power shortages and infrastructure deficits, corruption and a volatile and fragile global financial environment. “
The group says constrained fiscal space forced the government to adopt a contractionary fiscal policy stance, while the use of the multi-currency regime limits the use of monetary policy instruments.
The AfDB says much remains to be done in Zimbabwe to improve the business environment.
"Key challenges to doing business in Zimbabwe include policy inconsistency, funding constraints, corruption, inefficient government bureaucracy and inadequate infrastructure."