A mother’s heartbreak

Veronica Gwaze

RAPE, especially that of minors, and juju, usually go hand-in-hand. Add to that, the alleged perpetrator of the sexual assault being the biological father of the victim and you have a script for a Tilda Show.

The Tilda Show airs every Tuesday and Sunday on leading radio station, Star FM.

One of the programme’s recent episodes is the subject of our attention this week, as it has attracted attention from far and wide.

Society seems not just dumbfounded on the issue, but heavily divided as well. This is the sad tale of a father, who allegedly, repeatedly raped, and, or sodomised his two daughters, aged nine and four. The courts dismissed the case for lack of evidence.

The mother, however, still alleges that for eight years, the father of her minor children repeatedly to sexually abuse the two daughters, resulting in severe health complications.  Organisations and individuals have since joined hands to fight in the corner of the mother and her daughters. They say they want justice.

The mother of the two abused children, Norah Kanyemba (34), feels her 11-year marriage was cursed.  Her 41-year-old husband is a cobbler, while Kanyemba does menial jobs.  With her day beginning at 4am, she would often leave the children under the care of their father until nearly midday. Kanyemba regrets having trusted her husband to take care of the children in her absence.

The Sunday Mail Society visited her for an interview.

“May I never set my eyes on him again, I will not be able to control myself, he is worse than a murderer. He brought a lifetime curse on my girls, I will never be able to forgive him.”

She said her sad tale began back in 2011, when her eldest daughter was two. She discovered that every time the daughter wanted to relieve herself, she would cry uncontrollably. At first, Kanyemba thought it was constipation. For more than a fortnight, she used home remedies on her daughter, but still there was no change. Becoming curious, one day she decided to take a look at her daughter’s private parts.

To her surprise, she found a piece of flesh hanging out of her daughter’s rectum. She still has fresh memories of how terrified she was on that day, although she still did not suspect anything sinister. Unaware that it was a typical case of a hen consuming its own eggs, she ran into the arms of the alleged perpetrator, her husband.

“I was trembling. I had never seen anything like that before, but to my surprise, he (the husband) just responded without emotion.

“He simply said ‘haa kubuda musana uku’ as he continued with his business,” she narrated.

The following morning, Kanyemba had to run around to raise the required funds to take her daughter to hospital. She once again left her with the father.  She believes that he raped her again that morning.

When Kanyemba eventually managed to take the minor to the hospital, the child was producing fluids from her rectum. Nurses concluded that it was diarrhoea.

For two years, her daughter’s health deteriorated.  Later, nurses discovered that her back passage had split and the “diarrhoea” would not stop.

In 2013, the little girl underwent surgery, which left her having to pass stool through a tube that was inserted on the right side of her stomach.

Kanyemba says that by then, her daughter was no longer developing like other babies her age. lnstead, she was becoming frail.

Until now, she looks half her age and does not attend school.  Still in the dark, Kanyemba did not suspect anything close to sexual abuse.

In 2015, she gave birth to her second daughter.

For two years, everything was normal on the youngest daughter. Then on a fateful day in 2017, Kanyemba came back home to find her little one, who was only two, crying and alleging that her father had wounded her.

“It was in July and that was my worst day. I got home and when my daughter saw me, she cried uncontrollably. I still remember how she shouted ‘mama ndakuvadzwa na daddy’, covering her private parts with her hands,” recalls Kanyemba.

That moment, she did not react, fearing that the husband would turn violent.

She checked the baby and noticed that she was wet with what she concluded to be semen.

That night, she did not sleep a wink. She had to suppress all her emotions and fight the tears that kept threatening to spill.

The following morning she reported to work at her new job, a day care centre, leaving the two daughters with their father, who allegedly raped both of them again.  After disclosing to her employer the previous day’s incident, the employer accompanied her to make a police report, before heading to hospital, where rape was confirmed on both girls.

Despite the confirmations, the semen found on both children was never tested to establish if it was the father’s or not. The younger child was also found with a piece of flesh hanging out from her back passage.  Kanyemba’s husband was put behind bars.

However, when he appeared in court, he denied all the allegations. Eventually, the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.  Kanyemba is currently housed at a well-wisher’s house.

She suspects her husband’s actions were linked to juju. She said during the course of their marriage, her husband never allowed her to pack her clothes or peep inside their wardrobe.

“The wardrobe was always locked with a huge padlock, he did not allow me to pack my clothes in there. Even after washing and ironing, he would pack his clothes for himself. At first, I thought he would change. When he was behind bars, I could not sleep as weird and creepy sounds kept coming from that wardrobe,” she revealed.

This prompted Kanyemba to flee, leaving everything behind.

Her greatest wish is to see justice prevail.