Online Reporter
Tendai Gukutikwa
Weekender Reporter
A 51-YEAR-OLD Chimanimani woman — Clarget Nechirinda — has accused her ex-husband of manipulating her into resigning from a lucrative security guard job, only to abandon her three years later.
Clarget is now seeking justice, alleging that her ex-husband sweet-talked her into giving up everything — her job, independence, and dreams — based on unfulfilled promises of love and commitment.
Appearing before Chief Muusha’s community court last Saturday, Clarget emotionally recounted how she left a stable job as a supervisor, ironically working under her ex-husband’s brother, to pursue a marriage that ultimately ended in heartbreak and humiliation.
“When I met him in 2021, I was working in a secure position at a reputable security company. I was doing well. I was the boss at his brother’s company.
“He told me he wanted to marry me. He said we were both old enough, with children from previous marriages and that we should live peacefully together until death. He promised to take care of me and my children,” she said, her voice shaking with emotions.
Clarget revealed that she made the painful decision to resign from her job in 2022, shortly before Maputire paid her bride price, driven by love and trust in his words.
“I left my job because I believed in our future. I believed in him,” she said.
However, her hope soon gave way to hardship.
“Not long after, I realised that he had only sweet-talked me. He did not want to help raise my children. I found myself begging for money so that my kids could attend school,” she said, adding that in a devastating blow, Maputire’s response to her struggles only added to her pain.
“He turned to me and said he did not know raising children was this hard,” she said, adding that her situation took a turn for the worse when she moved in with her ex-husband and helped him build a three-roomed house at Nedziwa Growth Point.
She said the residential stand initially belonged to Maputire and his late wife.
However, instead of securing the new property together, Maputire insisted on developing the existing stand with her.
“I begged him to buy our own residential stand but he refused. He claimed his late wife had left a will giving him everything — the furniture, house and property.
I knew it was not right culturally, but he insisted.
He even brought his late wife’s furniture from their rural home and forced me to use,” she said.
Clarget alleged that she did most of the work to build the house, but trouble began when Maputire’s daughter, Concillia, returned from South Africa and started interfering in their marriage.
“Concillia uprooted the flowers I had planted in the garden. She treated me like an outsider in my own home. Her father stopped eating the food I cooked, only eating what she prepared. At night, he would sleep at a neighbour’s house and when he slept beside me, he would lay at the very edge of the bed as if I would harm him,” she said bitterly.
The final humiliation came when Maputire dumped a divorce token at her father’s deathbed, effectively ending their marriage while he lay gravely ill.
Clarget pleaded with the court to compel Maputire to provide her with a new residential stand and construct a house similar to the one she helped him build.
“I gave up everything for this man — my job, my peace and my dignity. All I am asking for is what I am owed — a place to stay, roof over my head, something to show for the time and effort I invested,” she said.
However, the court session took a dramatic turn when Concillia took the stand to defend her father, painting a different picture of the marriage by alleging that Clarget abused her father and refused to perform household duties.
“My father suffered in that house. She would beat him up and refused to cook or wash his clothes. If you were to look at his body, you would see some bite marks all over from their endless fights,” she claimed.
Maputire denied the allegations levelled against him, insisting that he had never forced her to quit her job.
“How could I have made her resign from her job? I have no such power,” he said, further disputing Clarget’s claim that she had built the house.
He said the stand in question belonged to him and his late wife.
Despite this, he confirmed that he was taking steps to acquire a new residential stand for Clarget.
Chief Muusha ruled in Clarget’s favour, ordering Maputire to build her a house of the same standard as the one they had shared, having admitted prior that he was already working on acquiring a stand for her.
