Beatrice Tonhodzayi-Ngondo, a senior health reporter for the Zimbabwe Herald and Vice Board Chairperson of the National AIDS Council. She has written on the problems of gender violence against women., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Saturday, 02 March 2013 00:00
Beatrice Tonhodzayi-Ngondo
Zimbabwe Herald
Make A Difference
Last week the country once again woke up to shocking headlines about a little girl who had been raped and killed. Those are the kind of headlines we are becoming used to as a country. We wake up these days to such headlines and all we do is open our mouths in shock, shake our heads in disbelief and then we move on with our lives, waiting until such a time that another headline of such magnitude is on the front pages once more.
Just where is this culture of rape coming from?
I have written about this issue under other columns before and was thinking I would dwell on other topics. But how do I move on to other topics when another little girl shall sooner or later meet the same fate that little 10-year-old Stacey Munjoma met that day as she walked back home to Rugare from Kambuzuma? How do we focus on other agenda items as a country when the home is burning down right before our eyes.
Right there in her home area, on familiar turf, some brutal and heartless man or men penetrated the little Rugare girl.
But no, they were not satisfied with this heartless act. They had to go further. They had to do even more damage by going on to murder her. Still they did not stop there. They went on to mutilate her and remove some of her body parts for their own ends and purposes. Who on earth does that? How do they do that?
Stacey’s grandmother, Ms Rosemary Musa, is quoted saying she believes that her precious grandchild was murdered for ritual purposes.
“Stacey was found in a maize field, her private parts were cut and was raped before she was murdered. I saw something from her back and I suspect she could have been sodomised,” the grandmother told reporters from H-Metro earlier in the week.
Who does that? What type of man does that?
In this time we are living in where we have women who openly sell sex, does a man have to force himself upon a little girl? Even those who don’t sell sex can consent to it as long as they are adults. But a child? This incident has shocked everyone. Even Zimbabweans abroad have joined in to the cause against the continued rape and abuse of girls and women.
A Facebook page, Justice for Tsitsi Stacey Munjoma has been created where several girls and women are participating in discussions about what we need to do as a country to address these issues before they get even further out of hand. All sorts of ideas are being thrown around. What will it take? http://www.facebook.com/JusticeForTsitsi?fref=ts
Residents of Rugare are in shock right now.
They cannot believe that in a maize field that is right there before everyone’s eyes, their little child, a child of the neighbourhood could have met such a fate. But truly it should be the whole of Zimbabwe in shock at this juncture. What is happening to our nation?
We are focused on Stacey today because of the gruesomeness of what happened to her and also because her case is still fresh in our minds. But the truth is this vice is fast spreading. Every day we hear of someone’s child, wife, mother, sister, being raped or murdered.
In some of the cases, body parts are cut off after the rape and murder as happened with Stacey, which points to some form of ritual process. While we know the police say they are investigating Stacey’s case, I write to demand today on behalf of all girls and women of this land who do not have the privilege I have to be able to secure space in the media, to demand justice for Stacey. I write to demand justice for every girl and woman raped before her.
Does anyone expect a woman to truly understand the invasion and violation that comes with being forced into sex? Sex as an act is a very intimate act. When one is forced into it, any woman will tell you, there is no worse murder than that. But when men go on to ravish little ones; it boggles the mind even further.
Which takes me to the traditional healers or charlatans or whatever they call themselves, who are behind these rape cases? Yes it is a documented fact that some men rape on the advice of their charlatans who tell them that this is a sure way to make money.
In tough times as we are living in now, where some will do anything for money, it is becoming very easy for some people to search for what they believe to be the easy way out such as seeking instant wealth without sweating for it.
In some of these sessions with their charlatans, some men are told that if they sleep with a young virgin, their chances of making it big become even stronger, which sees these men go out in search of innocent little girls such as the late Stacey. For some the reasons behind the sexual assaults are committed because they would have been told that will cure them of HIV.
While this is beginning to sound like a tired story, it is actually true that some men are raping and infecting little girls with HIV because they would have been told that will cure them.
Now if there is someone who still does not get it out there, HIV does not have a cure. It is manageable however but to manage it, one needs a medical doctor, a good diet, exercise and anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and not an innocent girl who deserves to live her life like everyone else.
If there is anyone out there who does not get it; money and wealth come from hard work and God’s favour. Rather than seeking out false advice from charlatans and wasting time and energy, I call upon any spineless men who think money will just flow simply because you have done an evil deed to start thinking and working hard like everybody else.
I am angry today. I am angry on behalf of the girls and women of this country.
Enough is enough. It is time that every Zimbabwean sits up and takes notice of this evil. I call upon the police to flush out even the n’angas behind these ritual murders and rape. I call upon female and male legislators to take up this issue and give it the serious attention it deserves.
Those who rape should rot and I mean rot in jail. Better still they should be castrated.
They should hang. Because what they are doing is the worst thing anyone can put another person through. As I write I call on the country to pray for the Munjomas who are going through this sad chapter. I ask the country to pray that this evil stops spreading as it is.
We do not need it in our Zimbabwe. Let’s fight for justice for those who have been raped. Let’s refuse to act as if it’s normal for women and girls to be raped.
It is time we see educational campaigns in schools and churches so that when our children are faced with this monster called rape, they will scream and scream loudly.
They need to know that even if the person is known to them, once they cross certain boundaries, one needs to run for dear life and scream. Let’s do something and do it NOW!
btonhodzayi@gmail.com
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