Traditional chief jailed 15 years for rape

A BUHERA traditional leader Chief Chitsunge - Magaya Gunguwo (83) - was last week slapped with a 15-year jail term after being convicted of sexually attacking one of his subjects, a 14-year-old girl, deflowering her in the process.

The rapist chief will, however, serve a ten-year effective jail term after Rusape regional magistrate Livingstone Chipadza suspended five years on condition of good behaviour.

Gunguwo was lucky to escape with a less imprisonment term after he was convicted of sexually attacking the girl almost on a daily basis from February to August last year at his residence in Chitsunge Village.

The attacks forced the girl to drop out of school as other pupils would constantly mock her, calling her the chief's wife.

"Each time I went to school, my friends and other schoolchildren were always calling me the chief's wife and for that reason I was not comfortable to continue being at school. As a result I dropped out, not because it was my wish to do so," the girl told NewsDay yesterday.

The teenage victim said the chief started his sexual attacks on her when he returned from a chief's conference held at the beginning of last year in Bulawayo.

This was after the chief, before leaving for the conference, requested the girl's mother to allow her daughter to stay with other children at the chief's village.

"The chief requested for my daughter to stay with his grandchildren at his village since we are distant relatives. But he abused my trust and raped her several times during the time he stayed with her. He only sent her back when she fell sick in August," said the girl's mother who revealed that she herself was HIV positive.

"At the moment I am no longer safe to stay in the area because I am living in fear of being victimised by the chief's close relatives. If I could find somewhere to go I would be happy to relocate," she said.

The court heard that after the conference, Gunguwo came home and followed the girl into the room where she wanted to collect maize-meal. He grabbed and forced her onto the bed where he raped her.

"The chief's wife would send me to collect mealie-meal every day in Gunguwo's house where he would follow me and threaten me with death if I refused to comply," the girl said.

Prosecutor Tirivanhu Mutyasira urged the court to impose a stiffer penalty against the chief considering that he had brought the chiefs' names into disrepute.

"I urge the court to impose a stiffer penalty of a lengthy custodial sentence since accused abused authority over his subject. He was respected and pretended to be a Good Samaritan by offering to help the girl when in fact he seized the opportunity to sexually abuse her," Mutyasira said.

A villager from Chitsunge who declined to be identified told NewsDay that at some point Gunguwo's chief's emblem, worn by the traditional leaders around their necks, was seized by one woman after a misunderstanding following a sexual encounter, and the matter was never reported.

Thomas Tavengwa an agent with Woman Comfort Corner (WCC), a non-governmental organisation which made the matter public, said nailing down the notorious chief had not been easy as police were reluctant to cooperate.

WCC director Rita Marque Mbatha said: "Police should react to reports promptly regardless of one's standing in society.

"We also discourage stigma among women and urge them to report any forms of sexual abuse. We also urge the media to play a bigger part in publishing such cases that warn society of how bad the situation has become."