HARARE, Feb 11 (AFP) - At least 137 young girls were raped in Harare last month alone, according to figures released by a rights activist on Wednesday, who described the figure as "staggering" for a capital of 1.5 million people.
A separate study revealed that 18 percent of Zimbabwean women had been raped in their lifetime, according to Janah Ncube, head of the Woman's Coalition of Zimbabwe.
Ncube told scores of protesters who took to the streets Wednesday to protest against rape that the figure for the number of children raped in Harare in January came from a clinic where most such cases were treated.
More than 90 percent of reported rape victims are infected by HIV, according to the coalition. Zimbabwe is one of the countries worst affected by the AIDS scourge, with at least 3,000 AIDS-related deaths per week.
"We are really very angry, we are outraged, we want a law to protect us," Ncube said.
The protesters included women, men, lawmakers and rights activists.
Escorted by police, the group marched from the mayor's office to the city centre park, Africa Unity Square, days after a woman was gang-raped by five homeless people in the capital in the early hours of the evening.
The city's acting mayor Sekesai Makwavarara expressed concern that violence against women had taken root in the country.
"Abuse of women has become an accepted phenomenon in our society and we should put an end to this," she said.
"Rape is a form of torture and it kills," said the mayor.
Last week the 38-year-old woman, walking from her office to her apartment in the city centre, was dragged into an alley and gang-raped by five street men.
"Gang rape has become commonplace," said Ncube. "We are now scared even to walk in the streets in broad daylight."
She said in the early 1980s, "government had enough police to unleash into the streets of Harare to round up women who were walking unaccompanied by males, claiming that they were prostitutes.
"Why can the same police not be unleashed on the streets of Harare to round up street kids who have grown up to be street rapists?" she asked.
The protesters carried placards urging the government to round up street children and take them to farms. The government has acquired, under its controversial land reforms, millions of hectares (acres) of land from whites for resettlement of landless blacks.
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