Zimbabwe Government: Our people not selling toes for millions

Zimbabwe denies that its citizens are selling their toes at a fee. [Courtesy of Adobe]

The Government of Zimbabwe has come out to dismiss social media reports suggesting that its citizens are trading their toes for millions of shillings.

The claims spread on social media this week after a Zimbabwean national took to social networking sites to post a video of himself saying he had sold his toe to buy a Toyota Hilux GD-6 pick-up.

In the video clip, the man is seen getting into the vehicle and telling people to sell their toes if they need quick wealth.

A blog in the country thereafter suggested Zimbabweans were selling their toes at a store in Ximex Mall, one the most popular shopping destinations in the capital Harare.

The report further said that the toes, upon purchase, were being transported to South Africa for ritual purposes.

In the southern Africa region, allegations of body parts being used for rituals have been rife.

Multiple reports say the body parts are harvested to facilitate enrichment of people who are seeking quick wealth.

In alleged WhatsApp conversations among Zimbabweans, different toe sizes attracted different prices.

The price tag for a big toe, for instance, is said to be $40,000 (Sh4.7 million); $25,000 (Sh2.9 million) for the middle toe and $10,000 (Sh1.2 million) for the little toe.

The toe-for-millions online posts, Zimbabweans said, were made in jest, and social media users in other parts of the continent shouldn’t have taken the joke seriously.

Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana and Kenya were some of the countries where the fake news spread, with a section of the online users believing that the reports were true.

Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Information Kindness Paradza has since come out to deny the toe-for-millions allegations linked with Zimbabweans.

“As Government, we did research on this issue and we realised it is false. These are social media reports aimed at tarnishing the image of the country,” Paradza said, as quoted by The Herald, Zimbabwe's largest daily newspaper.

The deputy minister said he personally visited Ximex Mall to verify the allegations.

Paradza said he questioned some of the traders at the mall, and they told him that the reports were baseless.

The deputy minister, however, said that ever since the reports went viral, there was an increase in the number of people visiting the mall enquiring how they could sell their toes.

Some of the people, Paradza said, came from as far as Bindura, a town located some 88 kilometres from Harare’s central business district.

“We are not involved in the alleged cutting of people’s toes here. Our deals are straightforward, we sell various [legal] gadgets here and if someone sees my car there, they think I got it after having my toe cut,” a trader who operates at Ximex Mall told The Herald.

Some of the traders removed their shoes and socks to prove that they had all their toes intact, the newspaper reported.