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ODZI- Maria Adriago lay motionless in the grass make shift house that has served as her home for the past three months. With her frail body barely covered in a tattered and half-burnt blanket, one would mistake her for a 12 year old child- she is 32 years old- and she has been suffering from breast cancer since her late teens.

Adriago’s condition has been maintained as she could get assistance in the form of special dietary requirements and medication from her employer Catherine Meredith.
But now after being evicted from the farm by new Wilton Farm owner, Mark Madiro, Adriago has not accessed treatment or the required medication.
She now looks pale and dehydrated, with swollen eyes and shaky hands which showed no sign of life.
But Adriago’s case is not unique to her as there are thousands of farm workers with different ailments who have been rendered homeless with no access to mediaction.
 
GAPWUZ estimates that over 66000 have been evicted since February and they continue to live in destitution under the harsh weather conditions, where starvation and disease have become the order of the day.
During the visits to farms, this writer witnessed not only the disturbing scenes of people living in makeshift grass shacks, but also the tragedy of Zimbabwe’s touted  land reform programme which has been hyped as ‘people centred’
Former workers interviewed accused the new farm owners of trying to cover up for there failure to run farms by chasing all the workers out and continuing to use the police and army to harass those who resist.
In Rusape, GAPWUZ recorded two deaths allegedly resulting from inhalation of toxic gases in an incident where police have been linked to the burning of former Silver Bow Farm workers.
The continued harassment of farm workers have been blamed on some ZANU PF reactionaries who are seen as unhappy about the coalition government formed by the three main political parties- Zanu PF, MDC-T and MDC-M in February.
The fresh wave of farm invasions started on the eve of the formation of the coalition government. 
GAPWUZ General Secretary, Gertrude Hambira castigated the new farmers for  not respecting human and workers rights by jst walking into farms and rendering thousands homeless “without considering the social, health and economic effects of such actions”
 “What incenses us a representatives of farm workers is that at the moment there are no concrete, appropriate and transparent plans and policies to cater for the evicted workers and when they say the land reform is a policy, then a policy should cover all those things, because if you kick out farm workers then it means you are not moving into a farm to farm, because if you are to farm, then you should need the labour” she said.
“We are tired of political figures disadvantaging thousands of lives in order to achieve their selfish ends, we need truth and honest now and we need to see people being taken to task over their actions” she added

By TAPIWA ZIVIRA and NDAIZIVEI KAMOTO