Zimbabwe’s climate crisis: Girls forced into young marriage and boys into illegal mining

Metro’s foreign correspondent Gergana Krasteva reports from Zimbabwe

The last time I see Madeline Mgwabi, she is peering through the gates of her crumbling home in western Zimbabwe.

The grandmother-of-three is clutching a single orange that our driver had slipped to her – leftover from the hotel breakfast.

The fruit will have to be split four ways – between her and her grandsons – one of them still a toddler – all of whom she is raising on her own in this godforsaken area in the southern part of Matabeleland North province.

Beside her, on a wooden bench, is her eldest grandson, still dressed in his purple and blue school uniform, steadily scooping gooey porridge from a plastic container.

To put food on the table, Madeline fetches firewood and does odd jobs for neighbours in the villag