The Hidden Bill: How Gender-Based Violence Is Costing Zimbabwe Its Future

By the time Grace left school in Form 3, her future had already narrowed. Orphaned young and raised by her grandmother, she became pregnant before completing her O-Levels. “My uncles failed to take me to school,” she recalls in research presented by the World Bank Group Gender Department.

Grace’s story is not an outlier. It is a window into the intersecting crises of gender inequality, violence and economic loss shaping the lives of millions of Zimbabwean women and girls.

A new economic assessment estimates that gender-based violence (GBV) costs Zimbabwe US$1.36 billion annually — 3.87% of the country’s GDP. Behind that figure are hospital bills, court costs, lost wages and, more profoundly, pain, trauma and derailed aspirations.

The analysis, conducted with support from the Centre on International Cooperation at New York University, uses a prevalence-based costing model to capture the full burden of violence within a single year. According to data drawn from the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey and other national sources, 33.5% of women aged 15 to 49 have experienced intimate partner violence.

But experts warn that even this is likely an undercount. Between 60% and 70% of cases are estimated to go unreported due to stigma, fear and entrenched social norms.

The financial toll spreads across every sector. Healthcare services linked to GBV cost an estimated US$18.6 million annually, including emergency care, long-term treatment and mental health services. The justice system absorbs more than US$15 million through policing, court proceedings and legal aid. Social services — shelters, counselling, and crisis hotlines — account for another US$21.4 million.

Yet these direct service costs represent only a fraction of the burden.

The largest share — 72.8% — comes from intangible costs: the monetised value of pain, suffering and diminished quality of life. Researchers calculated US$744.5 million in health-related quality-of-life losses alone. Intergenerational impacts, including educational setbacks and behavioural consequences for children exposed to violence, add a further US$399.7 million.

Violence does not end with the bruises fading. It reshapes life trajectories.

Zimbabwe loses an estimated US$138.3 million in productivity each year due to GBV — from reduced workforce participation, absenteeism and “wage scarring,” where survivors’ long-term earnings potential declines. Educational interruptions for children of survivors deepen the cycle, eroding the country’s human capital.

“GBV is not only a human rights violation,” the report states. “It is a significant economic impediment to development.”

The economic story is inseparable from the story of aspiration.

In parallel research across five African countries, including Zimbabwe, the World Bank surveyed 1,291 girls and young women aged 15 to 35 to understand what they want for their futures — and what stands in their way.

Nearly 45% of girls said they aspire to complete at least a bachelor’s degree. In reality, only 4% reach that level. Eighty per cent aspire to attain more education than they currently have.

The gap between ambition and attainment is shaped by layered constraints: financial hardship, teenage pregnancy, early marriage, distance to schools and safety concerns.

Ninety-three per cent of respondents agreed that girls should be able to continue their education after marriage. But married girls without children are 52% less likely to be enrolled in school than their unmarried peers.

Attitudes toward work tell a similar story. Only 10% of women surveyed work in male-dominated sectors, and 40% believe women should avoid such occupations altogether. In rural areas, 60% of girls report that a woman’s primary responsibility is household care, while financial provision is seen as a man’s duty.

These norms are not abstract beliefs. They influence whether a girl remains in school, whether she can leave an abusive relationship, and whether she can earn an income.

Violence both feeds on and reinforces these inequalities.

For policymakers, the findings are as much about fiscal planning as they are about justice.

Monica Mutsvangwa, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Women’s Affairs, called for a dedicated platform to review the findings with technical stakeholders, underscoring the need for evidence-based action.

“The cost of GBV findings clearly identifies the major cost drivers, including health, policing, justice and productivity losses,” she said.

“This critical evidence will directly inform the development of Zimbabwe’s investment case and financing models — two important advocacy tools for influencing financial investments and strengthening domestic resource mobilisation.

“This is an imperative priority in the face of declining donor funding, including for GBV prevention and response programmes.”

Her remarks reflect a growing recognition that, as external funding contracts, domestic resource mobilisation must fill the gap. The economic case for prevention is becoming central to national planning discussions.

The study recommends strengthening GBV data systems, developing a multi-year costed national action plan aligned to the budget cycle, and investing in prevention strategies guided by risk and protection factors. It also urges policymakers to link GBV response with women’s economic empowerment — recognising that financial dependence often traps survivors in abusive situations.

Regionally, Zimbabwe’s GBV burden — at 3.87% of GDP — is comparable to neighbours such as Uganda, though lower than South Africa’s estimated 5.9%. But the country’s distinctive cost distribution, particularly in intangible and intergenerational losses, signals deep structural consequences.

For Grace and millions like her, the cost of violence is measured not only in dollars but in doors closed.

Across Africa, an estimated 145 million adolescent girls stand at a crossroads around education, employment and family formation. In Zimbabwe, their dreams are expansive. Their barriers are formidable.

Addressing gender-based violence through a gender lens means recognising that economic growth, public health and social equity are intertwined. It means seeing survivors not as statistics but as citizens whose rights and aspirations matter.

As Zimbabwe moves to validate the study’s preliminary findings and develop an investment case for action, the question is no longer whether the country can afford to confront GBV.

It is whether it can afford not to.