IN the sweltering Mbare Musika, where the scent of second-hand clothes and shattered dreams lingers, Hazel Motsi’s* weary mind finally finds solace.
As a clothes vendor wandering through the familiar terrain, her heart swells with a mix of emotions of relief, anguish and a hint of hope.
News have just filtered that her ex-husband has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping her step daughter, the man’s child.
Motsi has gone through torture and apprehension for months on end.
It is on that fateful afternoon that she reminisces on the battle she and her stepdaughter have fought to ensure that her estranged husband gets locked away.
They have had enough of his raping his own daughter.
“When I think of it, the real champion here is my daughter,” she says as she sits down at her stall.
“To this day, I am still shocked by her bravery. When I met her father, he said he had only lived with the girl at intervals here in Harare. I decided that we would take her with us and enrol her at a good primary school.”
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The girl, according to Motsi, was 12-years-old when she took her from her maternal grandmother’s home in rural Pfungwe.
“I just could not ascertain exactly what was wrong with her, but I could tell by her eroded sense of self and the way she would avoid eye contact with her dad, that something was wrong,” Motsi says.
“One day in March, she called me while sobbing terribly asking if I could accompany her to the police station. I did not think twice or try to ask her further questions.
“The minute she told me that she had been raped by her father, I quickly closed my stall and went home.”
Motsi surprised all and sundry, standing by the young girl and ensuring that the matter was reported to the police while she got medical attention.
“My greatest fear after I became aware of the situation was that she could have been infected with HIV. Her father, although being my husband, was dead to me the day he decided to violate his own daughter,” she says.
The girl’s father, who is serving a 20-year jail term, is living with HIV and was an alcoholic before being incarcerated.
Fortunately, through her step-mother’s help, the young girl received post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) which prevented her from contracting the virus.
PEP is a combination of three antiretroviral drugs that one takes soon after a possible HIV exposure and is designed to prevent the virus from taking hold in the body and multiplying.
But for it to be effective, a victim has to start to take it within 72 hours (three days) of exposure, lest it won’t work.
Aside her fears that her step-daughter was likely to contract the HIV virus, Motsi tells NewsDay Weekender that after a few days of reporting the matter to the police, the girl started having suicidal thoughts.
“The hardest battle I had to fight was to convince her that the gruesome situation was not the end of her life,” she says.
“Several times, I would find her writing notes she intended to leave behind after she dies.”
Motsi further says the girl eventually agreed to go for counselling at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals after days of locking herself up and cursing the day she was born.
Although she is one of many young girls who received support from their guardians, child sexual abuse against minors by their male relatives continues to spread across the country regardless of the laws set aside to prevent the crime.
The Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act (2004) prohibits sexual relations with a child under 16 years, classifying sex with children under 12 years as rape, aggravated indecent assault or indecent assault.
Additionally, The Domestic Violence Act (2006) prohibits abusive “cultural or customary rites or practices”, and sex between men and daughters-in-law.
The Sexual Offences Act (2001) further prohibits sex with a “child, step-child, or adopted child”.
However, other male perpetrators within the family set-up are not explicitly listed in these categories.
Despite the efforts of law enforcers and the government, the role of parents and relatives to protect young girls from falling victim to child sexual exploitation is equally important in curbing the crime.
In a two-month investigation, NewsDay Weekender uncovered that broken families, as evidenced by the spike in the number of divorce cases recorded in Zimbabwe, continue to leave young girls vulnerable to sexual exploitation by their male relatives.
On May 23 this year, the High Court received 55 divorce cases to deal with in a single day, marking a rapid increase in marital dissolutions which later affects children.
A local non-governmental organisation that advocates an end to child marriages and child sexual exploitation, Shamwari YeMwanasikana (SYS), says it receives approximately 35 cases of child sexual abuse per month.
In an interview with NewsDay Weekender, SYS programmes lead Esnara Kativhu says the majority of sexual abuse cases they receive are of young girls being sexually abused by their uncles, brothers, step-fathers and biological fathers.
“The high divorce rate currently witnessed in the country has seen some parents neglecting the children’s welfare, thereby leaving them vulnerable to sexual predators,” Kativhu says.
“On average, we receive approximately 35 cases of child sexual abuse across the four provinces we work in, which include teen pregnancies cases, child marriages and child sexual abuse.
“Among these, the majority of the cases are scenarios where the perpetrator is related to the victims as step brothers, step fathers, uncles and even biological relatives.”
Kativhu says they also receive children who have gone through abuse and are ordered not to report the cases by their parents and relatives for the fear of sending a breadwinner to jail.
“Issues of broken families have directly affected a lot of girls because at times after the parents’ divorce, the mother usually moves on and gets married to another man who will not treat the child as his own,” she says.
Kativhu also reveals that in 2021, they tried to acquire safe abortion methods for a 15-year-old girl from Chivhu, who had been raped by her uncle.
The mother had been instructed not to bring any children to her new marriage by her newly-found husband.
“The mother was forced to send her daughter away just to secure her marriage. Unfortunately, for the teenage girl, she later fell pregnant after being sexually abused by her uncle,” Kativhu says.
Marital conflicts have also left children vulnerable to abuse.
According to licensed family therapist Gamuchirai Chinamasa, exposure to high levels of marital conflict has been proven to be associated with the development of a wide variety of problems in children and adolescents.
These include externalising problems, internalising problems, social maladjustment and deficits in cognitive competency.
“What triggers child sexual abuse during or after marital conflicts is that parents may not choose the right partners to move on with who are good to their children,” Chinamasa says.
“Parents tend to focus on divorce proceedings more and not their children’s safety. Children are vulnerable and can be taken advantage of by those that see that parental control has been minimised because of conflict.”
Tawanda Murepa, an award-winning mental health advocate, says there are a lot of issues involved when a man ends up sexually abusing her younger relative.
“Men are going through a lot without talking and it is not a secret that divorce can cause emotional distress to both parties” he said.
He emphasises that men should get help and go for therapy rather than finding solace in drugs and substance abuse.
“It is important for men to cry and look for help when burdened with life difficulties because taking drugs or alcohol does not end the problem, but only increase it,” he says.
A 2020 report by the African Child Policy Forum ranks Zimbabwe as one of the countries with an extensive framework for preventing violence against girls.
However, Girls and Women Empowerment Network team leader Kumbirai Kahiya says parents and guardians do not cross-check with the statutes of the law to protect children from sexual abuse.
“If we do not address issues of child sexual exploitation, we are creating an economy where most girls and women are not independent and cannot effectively participate in that economy,” she says.
“If our girls are raped, they become mothers yet mentally, they are still children. Some would have been infected with HIV and STIs [sexually transmitted infections], hence their chances of getting education and decent career paths are ruined. What it means is we recycle that cycle of poverty, dependence and exploitation.”
