…16 Grade 7 Pupils from One School in Mbire Fail to sit For Exams after Falling Pregnant
By Michael Gwarisa in Mbire
It’s an early Friday morning, and villagers from communities surrounding Mushumbi Pools growth point in Mbire, troop to Mushumbi High School, where several partners are offering Gender Based Violence (GBV) services under a Mobile One Stop Centre setup.
Over 100 women and girls arrived at the venue by 9:00 am. However, one can’t help but notice the visibly young children with babies strapped on their backs. At first glance, one might be tempted to assume the girls are probably ferrying their siblings and probably waiting for the real mothers to show up. It’s only when they start suckling the babies that reality sinks in. Most of the young mothers who spoke to this publication are aged between 15 and 20.
Seated in a corner quietly, clad in a red top and black skirt, hair uncombed, is Maria Mashumba (20) (Real name protected) from Hambe B Village in Mbire, a rape survivor who is facing banishment from her parent’s home because she has finally gathered the strength to speak about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her uncle, her mother’s brother.
As I was coming here today, my mother told me that if I set foot here and tell this story, I should not come back home and I am no longer her child,” says Maria as she tries to hold back her tears.
“I was raped by my uncle one day as I was coming from the garden. He raped me and I tried telling my grandmother who is a Village Health Worker (VHW) but she told me not to report the case. She tested me for HIV and pregnancy at home and said I was negative so there was no need to worry about it or report to the police.”
When she told her mother, she was threatened with eviction should she even think of reporting the case. Before Maria was raped, she had entered into an early child marriage which ended after a few months. She however has a child from that marriage. To punish her for trying to expose the rapist uncle, the mother has since stopped helping her with soap and other supplies needed for the child. She now works menial jobs in people’s gardens to feed her child.
“I have lost trust in my grandmother and mother. My father is at work so my mother does as she pleases. Even if anything was to happen to me today, I can’t share with them because of how they treated me when I was raped,” said Maria.
Maria said the rapist uncle passed away a few months ago. It however pains her that he died without facing justice and it is only after his death that she has finally gathered the guts to share her harrowing experience.
Fortunately, her grandmother has also been relieved of her duties as a Village Health Worker following revelations that she had swept many sexual abuse cases including that of her grandchild under the rug.
In a separate incident, 14-year-old Bybit Mlauzi (Real name protected) was raped at the age of eight and got pregnant. She became a mother at nine. To evade arrest, her family entered a settlement with her abuser’s family to pay a token known as Mafuka
dzadumbu. This automatically meant she was now the wife of her abuser. However, her marriage has collapsed and she is on her own.
“I was raped and I fell pregnant at nine years of age. I now have two children but my husband has left me. I don’t have anything to feed my child. At least these past few days, I received a bag of wheat as food aid so I have something to eat,” says Bybit.
Such is the gory picture and the extent of girls’ sexual abuse in Mbire. Without interventions, the crisis will continue and the future of many girls will be thrown into oblivion.
At Monozi Primary School in Mbire, it is feared that 16 Grade 7 pupils failed to write the 2024 Grade 7 examinations after falling pregnant due to early child marriages and sexual abuse. A teacher at Monozi Primary School who requested anonymity said cases of sexual abuse of primary school children were on the rise.
“Every month, we send reports to the district for school dropouts. So far, we have noticed that parents in this area do not value the education of the girl child. We have so many dropouts and about 16 grade 7 girls dropped out and could not write their examinations this year. We have also noticed that the girl child is being abused especially those at puberty stage. Even if we get a case reported of abuse, you find that parents are going behind our backs and getting payment tokens from abusers and life goes on,” said the teacher.
She added that there was an increasing trend of parents exchanging their girl children for grain amid a raging drought. Some are pushing their girl children into selling sex to get food. However, there is a lack of follow-up of cases in most parts of Mbire and perpetrators were moving around scot-free. Monozi area and surrounding villages do not have a police post and this increases this has hampered progress in addressing sexual abuse cases.
President Emerson Mnangagwa recently signed into law, the Criminal Laws Amendment (Protection of Children and Young Persons) Bill, 2024, raising the age of consent from 16 to 18 and protecting young people from sexual predators and early marriages.
Mr Gowdwin Muzeze or Chief Chitsungo or Mbire lamented the high prevalence of child marriages and abuse of young girls in his area.
“War 16 for example, is a problematic ward in my area. Cases of child marriages are rife. The biggest problem is that when these cases of abuse or marrying underage girls happen, we as leaders help the victim to get police assistance, and the police will refer her to the health facility. However, the turnaround time for the results is very poor. The result takes long to return to us and this delays our chances of helping the abused child at times,” said Chief Chitsungo.
Data shows that Mashonaland province recorded a sharp increase in teen pregnancies and sexual abuse cases during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Approximately 4000 pregnancies were recorded for girls aged between 15 and 19 years in all eight districts including Mbire.
Mrs Margaret Sangarwe-Mukahanana, the Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC) Chairperson said they were conducting GBV One Stop Centres in remote areas like Mbire to try and address the growing scourge of sexual abuse of young girls and GBV in the area.
“One of the highlights of the National Inquiry that we conducted in 2022 is that there are so many school dropouts of young girls in Mashonaland Central either because they have been abused or there is a preference to send the boy child to school. We decided that we should do some Mobile One Stop shops in rural areas. Mbire is one of the areas we decided to come to so that at least people can access those services. This includes legal services because there is a challenge in accessing justice,” said Mrs Mukahanana.
Meanwhile, the Mobile One Stop Centres are being financially supported by the UNDP Zimbabwe office. The UNDP has invested slightly above US$500,000 towards the Mobile One Stop Center program in Zimbabwe.
Mrs Tafadzwa Muvingi, the UNDP Zimbabwe Team Leader Transformative Governance said the Mobile One Centres will go a long way in increasing access to GBV services for survivors.
“Mbire district is one of the hard-to-reach areas. It is far from many of the different services that the beneficiaries need. The One Stop Centres is our attempt to bring a lot of these services that in most cases are very far away from the beneficiaries,” said Mrs Muvingi.
The Mobile One Stop Centre program has roped in various partners to offer services during the community outreach programs. Some of the services on offer during Mobile community outreaches include birth registry services from the Department of the Civil Registry, clinical services offered by the Ministry of Health and Child Care officers, legal services offered by various partners such Musasa project, ZWALA and others. Counseling services are offered by Pamuhacha, reporting sexual and gender-based violence cases to the Victim Friendly Unit (VFU) among other services.
NB// The identity of survivors have been altered to protect them.
