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Dr Josephine Shambare-Correspondent
Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) due to loneliness; following a divorce, separation, bereavement or some other circumstance; has been found to be a very strong underlying factor within homes, perpetrated mainly by close relatives and neighbours. It is encouraged then for one to look for an appropriate partner if one is in need or to ensure that the existing relationship is preserved and boosted.
Below is an excerpt taken from one of the interviews held with volunteer offenders who were remorseful and wanted to share their experiences. Appropriate procedures to do so were followed.
Lin (not her real name), aged twenty-nine, indicated that she was serving a jail term for ‘Having sexual intercourse with a minor’. She gave the following account:
“I was married when my husband abandoned me after proceeding to place X to look for a job. After a year, my brother-in-law started proposing love to me.
“I initially refused but later agreed to get into the love relationship”.
On being asked how old the brother-in law was, she said, “Aah. . .(looking down) he was fifteen years old, but I cannot remember well. When it was finally discovered, my mother-in-law then telephoned my husband saying, ‘Come and see what your wife is doing’.
“When my husband came, he did not talk to me, but carried out his own investigations. He found nothing initially.
“But when he sat down and discussed with his younger brother (victim), that is when the young brother indicated that he was having a sexual relationship with (me), his sister-in-law. After that divulsion, that is when my husband escorted me to my parents’ home.
“He told my parents that he was not divorcing me but would come back and fetch me. He went away and stayed for two months.
“He then came to my parents’ home again and asked me to join him back to his parents’ home to harvest my crops. When I got there, my mother-in-law rebuked me: ‘This person must go away from here because we divorced her’. I then returned to my parents’ home again.
“After a while, I decided to visit my husband to claim maintenance money for the children. Meanwhile, my husband had reported the case of my relationship with his young brother (victim). When the case was taken to court, my brother-in-law (victim) then told the court that he had started having sexual intercourse with me since he was thirteen years old. All that he was saying was false because he had been influenced by his relatives who no longer wanted me as their daughter-in-law, for having slept with him (victim).
“The issue of me having sexual intercourse with my brother-in-law when he was still young, was raised by my husband because he did not want to pay the maintenance money. In addition, he was now on the side of his parents blaming me for having a relationship with the victim.
“Too many people stayed at my husband’s parents’ homestead. At this homestead was my brother-in-law, mother-in-law, my little three children and the husband to my mother-in-law, who was not my real father-in-law, because my real father-in-law had passed away.
“This one was just a husband to my mother-in-law who came and stayed with her as her husband.
“The problem was that at this homestead came female relatives to my mother-in-law’s husband, who had long divorced their husbands. They were the ones who had made my brother-in-law (victim) experience sexual intercourse for the first time in his life.
“They started having sexual intercourse with him when he was thirteen years old, if I’m not mistaken. This is why my brother-in-law dropped out of school.
“When I told my mother-in-law that his son (victim) was indulging in sexual activities, she denied saying her child wouldn’t do that. I then warned my brother-in-law to desist but we ended up at logger heads.
“We only started getting on well, when we fell in love. Later on, my mother-in-law came to know about my love affair with my brother-in-law.”
On being asked about what she thought about the cultural practice of make-belief love, Lin replied: “Aah…(laughing) I don’t see anything bad if you are playing well without other issues…but then aah! That is when other things start, then you end up having sexual intercourse. Its puzzling.”
On being asked on what should be done to avoid such cases from occurring, Lin answered: “Husbands should stay close to their wives, and not abandon them, because that is when such things as this start, then people end up in jail.”
The above interview shows that several sexually ‘starved’ women took advantage of the hapless boy for their own sexual gratification.
The boy’s future was drastically affected as he had to drop out of school to satiate the ‘hunger’ of these sexual predators.
The incarceration of Lin, though a lesson to many, did not salvage the young boy from his predicament of being a sex tool unless help was to come his way.
Dr Josephine Shambare writes on social issues for entertainment and awareness, in her own capacity. Excerts are taken from her unpublished autobiography; and PhD thesis; ‘The Enigma of Child Sexual Abuse in the Zimbabwean context: Beyond Statistics’
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