‘Standing Together on a Riverbank’: Group Conversations about Sexual Abuse in Zimbabwe— Sipelile Kaseke

This brief article outlines a community response to sexual abuse in a rural community near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Local community workers developed a culturally-appropriate methodology for exploring young people’s responses to sexual assault in ways that did not rely on individual disclosure or public shaming and, instead, contributed to a collective voice which would question, resist, and protest against sexual abuse. This methodology employed the technique of a ‘personified’ externalisation; one of the community volunteers ‘played’ the role of Sexual Abuse, allowing children to ask about its various purposes, histories, and effects – and ways of limiting its effects in the community.