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Dr Masimba Mavaza Correspondent
Over 100 Zimbabwean men in the United Kingdom have been either charged or convicted of rape and most rape charges in the UK are due to cultural differences and sheer ignorance.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales for the year ending March 2018 showed that police recorded 150 732 sexual offences, encompassing rape (53 977 cases) and sexual assault and also sexual activity with children.
Most sexual assaults are carried out by someone known to the victim, this could be a partner, former partner, relative, friend or colleague.
The assault may happen in many places, but is usually in the victim’s home or the home of the alleged perpetrator. Of the number of perpetrators, African men are over a third.
By nature, an African man is loving, only that he expresses his love in a way regarded as criminal in the UK.
What exactly is rape at law? Rape is one type of sexual violence. Sexual violence is the general term we use to describe any kind of unwanted sexual act or activity. The legal definition of rape is “penetration with a man’s organ of the woman’s organ. Organ for women includes the back organ or mouth of another person without their consent”.
In law, sexual consent is when we agree by choice, and have the freedom and capacity to make that choice.
That means someone cannot give their consent when they are scared, threatened, bullied, very drunk or under the influence of drugs, or asleep.
If you said “yes” to something because you were scared for your life or safety, or for the life or safety of someone you care about, you didn’t consent.
If your body froze or “flopped”/went limp or you weren’t able to speak, it doesn’t mean you gave your consent for what happened to you.
This has been the greatest prison pass for many Zimbabweans. The girl goes silent and in a Zimbabwean man’s mind silence means yes.
Miros Denga of Leeds in the UK, a Zimbabwean, will never forget the day his white girlfriend lost her voice.
He took his girlfriend to his house. Miros had never been intimate with the girlfriend. When he arrived home, he became intimate with girl, who was also responding.
Miros recalled that afterwards, the girl said to him: “Miles what happened?” He smiled and said: “It was great”, but the girl screamed and said she did not consent.
Five days later, Miros saw a number of police officers at his door, he was arrested and charged with rape.
The judge said: “silence means NO” and Miros, for his failure to read silence, is now serving a five-year jail term for rape. He did not understand his girlfriend and paid heavily. He will be deported after serving his sentence.
Rape or sexual assault are serious crimes, which are used to simply differentiate between two types of offences.
The difference is that in rape, the male organ has to penetrate and in sexual assault the penetration is anything which is not a male organ.
Assault by penetration is when a person penetrates another person’s organ with any part of the body other than or by using an object, without the person’s consent. The overall definition of sexual or indecent assault is an act of physical, psychological and emotional violation in the form of a sexual act, inflicted on someone without their consent.
It can involve forcing or manipulating someone to witness or participate in any sexual acts, but not all cases of sexual assault involve violence, cause physical injury or leave visible marks.
Sexual assault can cause severe distress, emotional harm and injuries which can’t be seen — all of which can take a long time to heal.
This is why the term “assault” is used, and reports are treated just as seriously as those of violent physical attacks.
The biggest problems with Zimbabwean men in the UK who have settled for white girlfriends is that they do not understand that yes does not mean sexual consent. Many of those in prisons now are victims of what has become to be known as date rape, which is also referred to as acquaintance rape, which happens more often than sexual assaults committed by strangers.
Yet, date rape is often unreported because the victim knows their attacker and doesn’t want to cause problems within their relationship or social circle.
Regardless of rape being committed by a stranger or someone you know, it is still a crime, and those who are not from your circle will not hesitate to report the rape to the police.
Misheck Midzi, a prison officer in the UK said: “Many Zimbabweans are in prison because the girl felt bad afterwards and the poor guy is a victim of passion”.
Sadly, some people believe that if someone who has experienced date rape under the influence of alcohol at the time, is their fault.
Nothing could be further from the truth — no one, whether inebriated or not — deserves to be sexually assaulted.
The important thing to remember is that if you have resisted verbally or physically, if you have said no, or if you have been unable to say no due to the effects of drugs or alcohol, its rape.
Many people only realise that when they are in handcuffs.
Brian Mpofu of Nottingham is another Zimbabwean serving 22 years in prison after he decided to welcome his weekend in a nearby pub where he met four white girls.
They asked him to join them and within minutes they were enjoying their union. After few hours they invited him to their house.
In the process, Brian became more closer to one of the girls, Cloe, but ended up being intimate with two of them and in the morning, one of the girls complained that she did not remember consenting.
She then called the police and within few minutes the place was swamped.
Brian was arrested and on trial day, all the four girls claimed they were raped. He was charged with four counts of rape and sentenced to 30 years, seven of which were suspended for good behaviour.
In most of the cases of Zimbabweans on rape charges or serving sentences for rape, the complainant is either a white girl, a none Zimbabwean girl or a none African girl.
It seems some men believe that if a girl goes with them to the hotel room it means she agrees to whatever follows. This has been one of the ways to prison.
The English system is open to abuse, with the girls making a complaint simply because the guy did not rise to the occasion or simply that the girl feels a black man was not enough or the real boyfriend has found out.
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