$30 lobola offer for teen rape victim

Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
A 15-YEAR-OLD boy who was taken to court for raping a 12-year-old girl, told a magistrate he wants to marry the victim and has saved $30 for lobola.

The boy, who cannot be named because of his age, pleaded guilty to both counts when he appeared before Hwange regional magistrate Dambudzo Malunga.

“I intend to marry the complainant and so far I’ve saved $30 which someone owes me for a job I did. If it’s not enough I will ask my mother to help me,” said the boy in mitigation.

The magistrate sentenced him to receive four strokes with a rattan cane to be administered by a Prison and Correctional Services officer.

In addition he was sentenced to a wholly suspended two-year jail term.

The girl from Matshiya Village was doing Grade Seven at Zinaphi Primary School in Lupane district when the rape took place.

The boy resides at Silobela Village in Jotsholo in the same district. They were lovers until early this year.

Prosecuting, Tawanda Sigauke said the boy proposed love to the girl sometime in March 2014 and she agreed.

“The two would have sex in the bush,” said the prosecutor.

The court heard that in January this year, the two had a misunderstanding and the girl told the boy that she was no longer interested in him.

On February 3, the two had sex in the bush without the girl’s consent.

“On February 3 at around 5PM, the complainant was sent by her grandmother to fetch firewood from a nearby bush. She met the boy who was now her ex-boyfriend and he offered to help her,” said Sigauke.

While in the bush, the court heard, the boy asked to have sexual intercourse with the girl but she remained quiet.

The boy pushed her to the ground and raped her once.

When the girl arrived home, her grandmother quizzed her on why she delayed and she couldn’t give a satisfactory answer.

The grandmother summoned the girl’s mother who also quizzed her as they suspected she had been raped because of the smell of semen coming from her body.

She later opened up leading to the boy’s arrest.