The Sunday Mail
Stranger than fiction
Sex has often been interpreted differently by different people.
Strange cases have appeared on the magistrate’s roll at the Murambinda Magistrates Courts
To some people, it is a natural gift from God while to others it is an exciting and bonding experience. Some sexual activities have, however, been described as immoral and illegal whilst others have even been described as unacceptable and strange.
In a bizarre case, a Buhera man has taken his desire for the act “too far”, leaving no stone unturned in a futile attempt to bed his daughter-in-law.
Matsvene Chiduku of Chiwara village, Chief Nyashanu is so determined and has gone to unimaginable lengths to be intimate with Olivia Rejoice Runjanji, his daughter-in-law.
Rejoice is married to Chiduku’s eldest son, Blessing, with whom she has a son. Chiduku was insisting that it was a “family practice” that allows him to bed his son’s wife.
In futile attempts to bed Olivia, Chiduku has employed “dirty tricks,” among them insults, harassment and even death threats.
After realising that his daughter-in-law was a “hard nut to crack,” Chiduku tightened the noose, hitting her with “sanctions” in a desperate attempt to coerce her into giving in to his sexual demands.
She was barred from going to work, plunging her into financial difficulties.
Despite the loss of income, Olivia stood her ground, telling her father-in-law that he would only bed her in his dreams.
A desperate but determined Chiduku went for the kill.
He simply took away his son and accommodated him at his homestead, leaving behind the financially struggling and “sexually-starved” Olivia to look after the couple’s five year-old son.
To Olivia, the message was clearly written on the wall — she will only be re-united with her husband after consenting with her father-in-law’s demand for sex.
This latest round of “punitive measures” was too much for the 20-year-old daughter-in-law.
She rushed to the courts.
According to Olivia’s founding affidavit, which was read at the Murambinda Magistrates Courts, she demanded her husband back and begged the courts to bar her father-in-law from demanding intimacy with her.
Part of Olivia’s signed affidavit read in part:
“The respondent has a habit of demanding to have sex with me. He indicated that this is part of his custom that the father has to sleep with his daughter-in law.”
“At times, he comes home to harass and insult me for refusing him. Respondent’s behaviour has caused me untold emotional suffering as I cannot bear being deprived access to my husband. Naturally, in the way that I was cultured, I cannot sleep with my father-in-law, that is unacceptable.”
Olivia insisted that her husband has no problem with his father bedding her.
“I spoke to my husband about the demand and to my surprise, he is agreeable and advising me to fulfil my father-in law’s demands.”
Blessing’s mother has also given blessings to this bizarre family demand. “I tried to talk to my mother-in-law since she is also a woman, but surprisingly, she informed me that I am very stubborn and failing to honour and obey what is being requested to do at their home” reads part of the affidavit.
Olivia said her father-in-law was depriving her or hindering her access to or a reasonable share of her husband in direct violation of the Domestic Violence Act.
It is quite strange how a family, which claimed to be members of the Zion Christian Church, could go to such unimaginable lengths just to fulfil a “family practice.”
Although Chiduku denied the allegations, Murambinda magistrate, Henry Sande, granted the application in Olivia’s favour.
“Respondent is ordered not to demand sexual favours from applicant. He is also ordered not to bar the applicant from going to work and also not to threaten the applicant and her child with death,” reads part of the ruling by the magistrate.
Although the courts granted Olivia the protection order that she was seeking, the courts could not compel the elder Chiduku to “return Blessing to Olivia.”
The ordeal has, however, left Olivia shaken.
“I am afraid that he can seriously hurt me as he has been threatening to do so. I now feel insecure. I become very nervous and scared. Respondent has been a threat and nuisance in my life, since he started, I have not known any peace.”
She cannot even entertain thoughts of going back to her parents’ home in Mutoko.
Chiduku threatened her with “disappearance” if she returned to her parents’ house.
