Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children

Yesterday afternoon I watched the documentary "Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children" of the BBC iPlayer. And I was struck by the degradation of life in Zimbabwe - and there is a filmed meeting with Robert Mugabe, who evidently has no care of the population.

When children are no longer educated because the system precludes them through the poverty of their families brought on by Mugabe's disastrous rule, then we have to take stock of the situation.

Mugabe claims that the health and education sector have collapsed because of the sanctions imposed on him and his administration. I would love to know exactly how this is possible – especially when, as you will see in the documentary, an elderly woman is not able to even rustle up 50 American cents to pay for her grandson’s school fees.

You will also see the filth and dirt that people are obliged to live in. How is it that the refusal to let Mugabe and his minions mix with others in the world has brought about the personal suffering of the people of Zimbabwe?

Mugabe himself is an educated man. How is it acceptable that his hunger for all-encompassing power allows him to take the right of education from the children of Zimbabwe?

The documentary can be seen on the BBC iPlayer until Sunday 7th March 2010. And, if you can, it is well worth the 90 minute duration.

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"Zimbabwe, when I was growing up there, was the breadbasket of Africa and had one of the best education systems in Africa if not the world.

The healthcare system was great, too.

For a child born in apartheid-era South Africa, as I was, it was a land of opportunity. After my mother moved to Rhodesia, I received a first-class education, and graduated from university in post-independence Zimbabwe.

It is startling how quickly a society can fall apart.

My film, Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children, follows the stories of a number of children struggling to survive in the country today.

Zimbabwe has become a very hard place to be poor, and poverty is ugly. Conspicuous consumerism is very evident, and greed is also very visible.

I shot the film undercover, after getting a permit to make another film, about my childhood and how it has shaped me.

I was raised as a child of the ZANU party. My stepfather's cousin Nabaningi Sithole, founder of ZANU, was a prominent politician, and my cousin Edison Sithole the first doctor of law in southern and central Africa - he disappeared in 1975, abducted by Ian Smith because he was a human rights lawyer and political activist.

But while I was making this film the Zimbabwean government launched Operation Murambatsvina (Remove the filth) - a slum clearance programme that left thousands of people on the streets.

This made me resolute to make another film, about Zimbabwe's children.

I focus mostly on three stories.

There are Michelle and Grace, who live with their father Joseph. Joseph dreams of saving enough money to pay for his children's education, but for now they all work - by digging bones from a rubbish heap and selling them.

"What I am doing is child abuse really," he says. "They should not be working like this. It hurts me."

There is Esther, who looks after her mother as she dies of Aids, and also her younger brother, Tino.

After her mother dies, Esther's life becomes simpler. "It's much easier to look after Tino now, because I don't have to look after mum as well," she says.

Esther's case is not an unusual one in today's Zimbabwe. It's a common scenario.

There are also the street children.

When I lived in Zimbabwe in my twenties, there were hardly any street children in Harare.

Children are now not only living on the streets, they are giving birth on the streets. A second generation of street children is growing up.

The system was supposed to take care of its people, but it has failed.

In less than a generation, the country has changed beyond all recognition."

Xoliswa Sithole is a South African film-maker based in Johannesburg. She was awarded a BAFTA, for her role in producing the BBC/True Vision documentary Orphans of Nkandla, chronicling the effects of Aids in Africa. Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children can be seen BBC Four, at 2245 on Wednesday 3 March, or on the BBC iPlayer.

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man