Children's dispute spills into court

TWO Harare women, who are neighbours, have dragged each other to court following a misunderstanding between their children.

The women appeared before magistrate Sharon Mashavira last week.

Monica Matema accused Sandra Mutsvedzi of inciting her two children, aged 11 and 9, to harass her grandchildren.

Matema told the court that she had tried to engage Mutsvedzi to reprimand her children to no avail.

"I travel a lot and everytime I come back home my grandchildren complain that the respondent's children are abusing them. I have tried to confront the respondent who insulted me and started depriving me access to the community borehole," she said.

Mutsvedzi, however, denied the allegations claiming that Matema was being unreasonable by interfering in children's matters.

"She came to my house to confront me and I ignored her because it is in children's nurture to argue and disagree. When she saw that I ignored her, she went as far as calling my land lady to have me evicted but her attempt failed," Mutsvedzi said.

Mashavira dismissed the application after concluding that Matema was bitter after being deprived of access to borehole water, a matter deemed to be out of the jurisdiction of the domestic violence court.