When rape produces a child

"HE would open the door while I am bathing to look at my naked body, he wanted to know when I was menstruating and said he had the right to 'inspect' me regularly. One day after bathing he walked in and raped me."

These were the heartrending, tear jerking words of 20-year-old woman from Pumula suburb in Bulawayo who was raped by her uncle on 23 September back in 2011 when she was only 15.

She wants the world to know her story although its sounds like a script plucked from a horror movie. What makes the pain worse about her ordeal is that out of the violent crime of rape, a child was born.

Like most rape victims, the woman was scared to report the case to the police as she was threatened with death by her uncle and it took the courage and assistance of a tenant at the uncle's house to have the matter reported.

"After I was raped I had no one to tell as our tenant who was my only hope was away, when she finally came back several weeks later I told her and she went to the police to report because malume had me under lock and key so that

I do not interact with other people. So she went on my behalf," she said.

The woman's story unfolds like a sad movie script as she falls from one misfortune to the other. After being raped, and even after a police report was made, she approached a health institution in the city to see if she could be assisted to terminate the pregnancy, but she was told it was too late.

"I was devastated as I was told that I was no longer able to get a termination as time had already lapsed so I was forced to keep the child," she said.

Home then became a dangerous place to stay for her as the uncle had vanished after he heard that police were after him and she was not sure if he would return. The woman moved to a home, Precious Life Foundation in Siphezini in Umzingwane District where she stayed until she gave birth in June 2012. The shelter offered care for the child, clothed and fed them.

She says when the baby was two months old, the uncle was finally arrested in Gwanda where he had been hiding and was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and is serving for his heinous crime at Khami Maximum Prison.

However, misfortune never left her side as she was disowned by her family for exposing the rape and getting her uncle arrested.

"My grandmother and other relatives said I erred by reporting my uncle who is a brother to my late mother, they said they want nothing to do with me as I was responsible for sending him to prison," she said with rage in her eyes.

Her family is demanding that if she wants to be accepted back, she has to facilitate the release of her uncle from prison.

She said: "Gogo said I got her son arrested so I should take care of the child alone, she said if the rapist was out of prison he would be fending for his child."

The woman says she has no source of income save for the rentals from the Pumula house which her mother left and her father died when she was still young.

The Pumula home is now registered under her name, through the assistance of an organisation called Trinity Projects.

Her remaining relatives do not assist her in anyway and she is pleading with well-wishers to help her feed her child and also pay for her school fees as she should be enrolling for ECD. She said she is also doing lessons since she intends to sit for her O-level examinations which she failed on the first attempt.

To assist her, get in touch with the writer, email: robin.muchetu@sundaynews.co.zw or call Sunday News, 09-888871-9/0772115830