Why women withdraw charges before plea

Tendai Gukutikwa
With a heavily bandaged head, swollen red right eye and bruises all over her body, Eve Matsikesimbe(20) walked to the public prosecutor’s office to withdraw the charges that were being leveled against her husband Gilbert Rimbe (29).

In her hands was the withdrawal affidavit that stated that she was withdrawing the charges on her own volition because she had forgiven the beast of a husband that had close to murdered her the previous night.

In a world that is advocating for gender equality, the dependent wives remain vulnerable to excess domestic violence as they are forced to withdraw charges by not only the relatives of the husband but also by the environment. According to some women who withdrew charges before plea on their husbands, the main reason they took that risky initiative was the fear of having to look after the family themselves.

This is full proof of the dependency syndrome that has gripped most of the female population that heavily depends on their husbands financially.

“What would I do if he gets incarcerated? How will I look after the children and pay the bills if he gets locked up? Even if he does not get locked up, they are sure to make him pay a fine of $100 or $150. Where will he get it when he clearly is struggling to look after his family? Those are the reasons why I had to withdraw the charges. I have not forgiven him but it is just the only way out of the situation,” said Matsikesimbe as she waited by the Mutare Magistrate’s court gates for her husband’s release after she had withdrawn the charges.

As expected, the domestic violence charges were withdrawn before plea at the instance of the complainant, Rimbe was set free only having been detained for a day in the police cells to warn him off from committing a similar crime in the future.

Such has been the order of the day at the courts, ‘A’ gets assaulted heavily by her husband over a mere misunderstanding, she is injured, reports the matter to the police and on the court day, ‘A’ withdraws the charges. It just leaves everybody questioning on what good does it do for someone to make a police report and later withdraw charges before plea?

According to the law, once a complainant withdraws charges against the accused, you can not bring the same matter to the courts again, the court will already be done with it.

This is evidenced by Mutare senior magistrate Mrs Sekai Chiundura’s incessant warnings to women who would have come to court with the intention of withdrawing charges against their abusive husbands.

“Do you know that once you withdraw charges you can not come back here reporting on the same matter? Have you been coerced by anybody to withdraw these charges?” she asks each one of them.

She also goes on to warn the perpetrators on the seriousness of their offences and what would happen if they are brought back to court facing a similar offence.

“Offences of this nature are on the rise and it is every day that we get the likes of you in this court, a man is supposed to love his wife and not be the perpetrator of violence against her.

“There isn’t going to be a second chance for you if you are arraigned before this court facing a similar offence, she(your wife) will not be able to withdraw those charges again. Would you be happy if your sister or mother is the victim of domestic violence?” she asks.

What difference is there between this domestic violence perpetrator and a murderer? These are the same people who will later in life kill their spouses and testify in court that it had been a mistake, they had not intended to do it.

Those are also the same people who drive their wives to kill them, a good example is that of the Mutasa teacher Pamela Bhowa, who murdered her husband after 20 years of incessant abuse from the husband, she murdered him in cold blood, by axing him to death as he slept.

In her defence before the High Court Judge, Justice Charles Hungwe, Bhowa said that she had acted in anger due to her husband’s never ending abuse during the course of their marriage.

“I was in an abusive marriage. My late husband accused me of being a goblin’s wife and assaulted me times without number but I could not fathom the fact of his incarceration if he got arrested which is why I never had him arrested. I feared that if my husband got incarcerated, I would look as a bad wife and mother both to the world and to my children,” she testified.

Had it been that she at one time had reported the alleged domestic violence cases to the police and that her late husband been arrested and warned off against abusing his wife, one would be convinced that she would not be in soup that she is in today.

No one is worth being some husband’s punching bag only because you are too dependant on him and can not look after the kids yourself. If someone assaults his wife, he deserves to be incarcerated, or rather it is the court’s job to deal with him and not have the charges withdrawn before plea. It is just so unfair for the law. You need not report in the first place if you wish to withdraw the charges, is one simple way of saying it all.