The Sunday Mail
“If the two men who briefly lived as husband and wife with my two children do not go to jail, then definitely I am going to be the one who is going to be in prison for the foreseeable future,” fumed Cleopas Njombo, of Nyamambizi in Hurungwe District, Mashonaland West Province.
The two girl children who are now back at school at Nyakasikana secondary school preparing for lessons at their homestead.
Clearly a troubled soul, Njombo’s two 14 year-old daughters, Melody and Stella, were recently rescued from early marriages.
Of the daughters was married to a self-styled prophet.
What particularly irritates Njombo is the failure by the justice delivery system to decisively deal with the two men who took away his daughters’ innocence.
He let out his feelings, on what he feels is the shoddy work being done by the police despite his family’s efforts in helping the police to apprehend one of the perpetrators.
“The 18-year-old man was arrested by police in Karoi with our assistance, only to be released after two days, pending appearance in court, whilst the other 19-year-old self styled prophet has become a fugitive,” he said, in desperation.
Njombo said medical reports done in Karoi had established that the young girls were violated during the time they stayed as “housewives” to the two paedophiles.
“They cannot consent to sex at their age, honestly, as they are still toddlers who rely on everything from me as their parent and am more determined to deliver justice myself if the authorities cannot help me to bring justice for my two children,” he fumed.
Like a caring father, Njombo has sent back his daughters to school, but he still feels the pain.
Their mother, Zviito Mashorera, concurred and said her wish is to see those criminal elements put behind bars.
“The authorities should rid society of those elements who cannot differentiate between young toddlers and older women, and I am happy that the girls have find the courage to go back to school, since most of the girls who have done likewise do not find the courage to go back to school,” she said.
She said although the doctors said the girls had not fallen pregnant after their brief stints as housewives, she also was not happy about the way the police are handling the case.
Hurungwe district has some of the country’s highest statistics in early child marriages with 41,9 percent of young girls said to have abandoned school to become housewives.
But how did the two young girls, whom their headmaster at Nyakasikana described as average students, ended up being young wives to two rogue elements.
On their way from school, the two girls met the said two local men, a tobacco farmer who is set to appear at the Karoi Magistrate Court soon and the self-styled prophet who is still on the run.
“We were coming back from school, when we met these guys and they accused us of dating other boys in the area,” explained Melody.
“We ended up at their homes since they live close-by and when we wanted to go home, our father was already home back from the townships and we were afraid.
“That is when the boys said we could become their wives,” she said.
She said they stayed there with the accused, doing all things married people do, including availing conjugal rights, until their parents came looking for them.
Fortunately, the two have resumed their Form One lessons at Nyakasikana Secondary School after their brief, under-age marriages.
“We are happy to be back at school and we are much more determined to excel in our studies,” said Stella.
All these efforts to stop these early marriages have been made possible by a programme launched in the Hurungwe District recently dubbed Operation Siyana Ne Mwana Wechikoro (OSMC).
Hurungwe district education officer, Mr Jason Dzveta, said the programme seeks to curb incidences of child marriages, especially of the girl and at the same time bringing perpetrators of such acts to book.
“We deal mostly with disadvantaged girls and we have set up a committee which we call the Community Development Centre (CDC), and it is during the monitoring exercise that we discuss anything that we think might assist the girl child to achieve to their best abilities,” he said.
He said the CDC comprises of various government departments and even some of the NGOs who operate within their district.
Mr Dzveta said it was during the post-monitoring meeting where they decided, after having noted that the district had lost a good number of children to early marriages, to inform local communities that it was illegal to marry a child.
“So, we came up with an idea, an operation which we call OSMC — and it was launched by our district administrator,” he said.
“Through the programme we visited a number of schools where we have managed to take the victims back to school, one example is in Matawu where we took back to school one girl who was married and we had to seek the approval of the husband.”
He said the girl successfully sat for her O-levels.
He said they have met one particular incident where one of the programme beneficiaries was actually abused by her own father.
“So, in that particular case we reported the father to the police, he was arrested and we took the daughter to a safe place until the trial had been completed,” he said.
“But in this case it was a bit unfortunate that we thought we did not act on time because when the case was taken to court the girl reversed her statement so we ended up losing and had we acted promptly, we could have got something.”
The headmaster at Nyakasikana Secondary, Mr Tari, said he was particularly impressed with the programme.
“The local environment contributes significantly to the issues of early child marriages due to the general poverty in the area, in which taxi and kombi drivers are viewed as celebrities and, in fact, they are the most perpetrators of early pregnancies,” he said.
He said the local tobacco farming community, especially during the selling season, did not help the situation.
“We already have lost nine students to early child marriages and we are particularly grateful to the parents of Melody and Stella, who have greatly co-operated with the school authorities, otherwise some of the parents are not co-operative when it comes to these issues,” said Mr Tari.
Government says it’s in the middle of the process of crafting laws that will soon outlaw child marriages, while the Sadc region is also in the process of harmonising member countries’ laws on child marriages.
The harmonisation seeks to set a minimum age of consent to marriage at 18 and the process is being driven by the Sadc parliamentary forum.
Reached for comment, police provincial spokesperson for Mashonaland West, Inspector Clemence Mabweazara, said he was yet to receive the facts.
“I will be in a position to confirm as soon as i have all the facts pertaining to the issue,” he said.
Mr Njombo did not have the details of the docket, only saying that a certain Constable Jecheche from Karoi police, was handling the case.
