Swazi women plan to march on Thursday in protest against a shopping tour undertaken by eight of the ruling monarch's 13 wives after they chartered a flight to Europe and the Middle East.

The eight wives, children, maids and bodyguards left the impoverished mountain kingdom last week to shop for the "40-40" double celebrations to mark independence from Britain and King Mswati III's birthday on 6 September.

"The queens have to look radiant and that is why they have to go and buy quality (items) for the big day. They were being spoiled," a source in the royal family told AFP.

Angered by what they consider excess largesse, the protest march to the Swazi government offices in Mbabane is being planned by the Women's Coalition of Swaziland and Swaziland Positive Living.

The Coalition's Ntombi Nkosi questioned how funds could be spent on a shopping trip when Swaziland, which has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate, faced shortages of medicines including anti-Aids drugs.

"Those given the money do not even contribute a cent to the money they are looting," Nkosi told AFP.

"We are against the idea of public funds being used in a questionable way by people who are not employed and (who) do not bring any revenue to the country's coffers," Siphiwe Hlophe of Swaziland Positive Living also told a local newspaper.

Swaziland is Africa's last absolute monarchy and is known for its annual Reed Dance celebrations in which thousands of bare-breasted young women dance in front of the royal family.

Close to 40 percent of adults in the landlocked southern African nation are living with HIV and Aids, the highest infection rate anywhere in the world, according to United Nations figures.

Jim Gama, the governor of Ludzidzini, the Swazi traditional capital, said a march by women was "un-Swazi".

"I have never heard of women marching. All I know is that a woman has to seek permission from her husband to register her disagreement with whatever was happening in society but not for her to march. That is un-Swazi."

AFP