The curse of old age: elderly workers on Zimbabwe's large scale commercial farms, with particular reference to foreign farm labourers up to 2000

Studies on farm labour in Zimbabwe have often tended to neglect the plight of disadvantaged sections of this workforce. This article seeks to ftll this void in mainstream labour studies. It focuses on the "use" and abuse of elderly workers on large-scale commercial farms in Zimbabwe. Elderly workers have existed either as a recognized group of "special" workers or "invisibly" as part of ordinary workers. The article examines the nature and extent of exploitation and discrimination of elderly workers, particularly their confinement to the so-called "light" tasks. The central issue of comfortable retirement is also put under the spotlight. Aspects of pension and other terminal benefits are discussed in the light of general provision for old-age. The article grapples with the government's land reform programme and its adverse effects on farm workers who lack ethnic and nationality rights to own land. For many "foreign" workers, prospects of returning to countries of origin have become more remote by the years due to several factors, and, yet, women, children and the elderly were probably the worst affected by farm "invasions" that characterised the government's controversial "fast-track" land redistribution exercise since early 2000.