Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
NINE-year-old Sihle Sibanda*, bears the emotional scars of a rape ordeal she suffered at the hands of her 62-year-old step-father a year ago, but even more disturbing, she also has an injured uterus from the forced sexual experience which has led to constant severe pain.
According to medical reports, she may possibly have to remove the uterus because she has not healed from the assault which saw her taking four stitches to fix the damage. As a result of the pain she occasionally misses school.
The stepfather was sentenced to 16 years for the crime and is serving at Khami Maximum Prison, but despite justice being served, the child is physically damaged, a situation the 26-year-old mother worries about daily.
“The issue started when my daughter from a previous marriage remained in Plumtree Town with my husband while I was at the rural homestead. He said I must not take her with me as he could stay with her while she attends a better school. I agreed and I would often visit them in Plumtree town and all was well.
“However, my grandmother died and I had to come to Bulawayo and stayed with my mother for a week.
We had a fall-out with my husband and I never returned to Plumtree then and decided I would go to collect my children and property,” she said.
Bitter about the breakup, she said he husband threatened to do something drastic.
“He said I would never forget what he was about to do, and I had no idea what he was going to do. I stayed away for a month and he called me apologising saying I must come back home and when I went back, the Department of Social Welfare had taken the children and put them in the custody of a co-tenant where he lived,” she said.
On arrival to collect the children from the Department of Social Welfare in August last year, her husband told her that there was a rape accusation levelled against her brother by her daughter.
“He told me to negotiate with the officials so that his brother is spared from arrest. I did not want that, I told them the truth, that at the time this child was alleging rape I was at the village with my younger brother but he left in June 2022 to look for a job. I insisted that if he had done it, then the law was to take its course. We, however, were not given the children. We were told to return on a Monday,” she said.
On Monday her brother did not show up and a police report was subsequently made against him.
“In the meantime, he asked for the child again but I refused and said he must take our son instead since she had been sexually abused, I needed to be closer to her. He then refused to pay her school fees and all her other needs. The child was no longer performing well in school and I had to send her to Grade One again, yet she was supposed to be in Grade Three,” she added.
However, suspicions were high that maybe he had been sexually abusing the child instead as he was not being intimate with his wife for three years.
“My daughter then approached me and told me he had raped her three times when I was in Bulawayo. I was shocked. She narrated that he came from work, and beat her up. When they were sleeping, he would take her off the floor where she was sleeping with her siblings and rape her. He threatened her saying he would kill her and me. I informed my mother and we quickly reported the case to the police,” she said.
After the violation, the nine-year-old was limping as she had injuries on her private parts, the stepfather burnt the inside of her thighs with plastic so that if asked, she would lie and say she was limping because she had a burn wound. She was also told to implicate her uncle if it was discovered that she was raped.
“I have been taking her to hospitals to seek help as she now has a problem with her internal organs, they say her cervix has changed position and was damaged, the assumption was that the pain would go away after treatment last year and her internal organs would heal but that has not been the case.
“I have been informed that they may be forced to remove her womb as she was severely damaged. So, since the crime was committed last year, she has severe pain and she cannot even walk up straight when it starts. The whole of last week she did not go to school as it had started again and we had to take her to the doctor,” she said.
The mother said once the injections and oral drugs she was given were finished, the pain starts all over again. —@NyembeziMu
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