Online Reporter
Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
Chinhoyi High Court Judge Justice Bhachi-Muzawazi has bemoaned the prevalence of gender-based violence and urged society to revive traditional conflict resolution mechanisms while involving family elders, the church, and counseling groups to prevent such tragedies.
She said the growing trend of people abandoning traditional mediation methods of resolving domestic disputes, opting instead to take the law into their own hands ,as misguided.
The judge made these remarks while sentencing a 54-year-old Zvimba man, Bernard Kufakunesu, to 15 years in prison for the brutal murder of his seven-month pregnant ex-wife, Viola Chitsinde.
“Gender-based violence is escalating at an alarmingly rapid rate,” said Justice Bhachi-Muzawazi.
“Society has turned a blind eye to the wisdom of traditional dispute resolution mechanisms.”
The judge went on to stress the importance of involving community pillars such as family elders, the church, and other counseling organisations in settling conflicts.
She underscored her point with a poignant vernacular proverb, “Vatete vachabvepi”—a rhetorical question lamenting the absence of these vital mediators in modern society.
The court found Kufakunesu guilty of murder with constructive intent after he strangled Chitsinde with an electric cable.
The fatal incident happened on October 29 last year, when Chitsinde, who had been estranged from Kufakunesu, approached him to demand money for a medical scan.
Chitsinde’s lifeless body was later discovered several kilometers from Kufakunesu’s home.
The couple’s four-year-old son, Bernard Kufakunesu Junior, became the key witness in the case.
On the morning after the murder, the boy recounted the harrowing events in vivid detail to his teacher, whose testimony, corroborated by police investigations, proved pivotal.
Justice Bhachi-Muzawazi accepted the boy’s account alongside other unchallenged evidence, which secured Kufakunesu’s conviction.
In her sentencing, Justice Bhachi-Muzawazi condemned the accused’s actions, emphasising the aggravating factors, including the victim’s advanced pregnancy and the long-standing pattern of domestic abuse that characterised their relationship.
She dismissed Kufakunesu’s defence, which sought to paint the killing as unintentional and a result of mutual combat.
Kufakunesu had claimed that a dispute over financial matters escalated into a physical altercation, during which Chitsinde was accidentally strangled by an iron cord.
He further alleged that Chitsinde had walked away alive into the night, a claim the court rejected as implausible.
The court also addressed the ripple effects of Kufakunesu’s violence, noting the psychological scars inflicted on the young boy who witnessed the crime and lost the stability of his family.
In sentencing Kufakunesu to 15 years, the court balanced mitigating factors, such as his partial payment of lobola, against the severity of his actions. Justice Bhachi-Muzawazi declared the punishment fitting.
