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Rapists must be punished — severely

Opinion & Analysis
I applaud the First Lady Grace Mugabe for taking up the fight against rape and other kinds of abuses, demanding that such people face the guillotine to snap their heads off.

I applaud the First Lady Grace Mugabe for taking up the fight against rape and other kinds of abuses, demanding that such people face the guillotine to snap their heads off.

Ropafadzo Mapimhidze

These comments may sound too harsh, but that is the anger expressed by families who have loved ones that have experienced such an ordeal.

The profile of a rapist is difficult to portray because they range from politicians, chief executives and down to people from the lowest social strata.

Any man, from any social strata, is capable of committing this heinous crime and hence it becomes difficult to define characteristics of a rapist.

I have spoken to hundreds of rape survivors during my course of duty spanning over three decades and they have all said they were raped by people they knew, acquaintances of male members of the family.

In some instances, such pain is inflicted by someone a woman is dating, popularly known as date rapes. Very few rape cases involve unfamiliar people.

Some of these women have failed to lead normal sex lives because of the trauma stemming from such experiences and without proper counselling, some of the women end up hating men with great passion.

Some contract HIV that causes Aids and sometimes decide to go on sex sprees to spread the disease in revenge.

I met one such woman, a university graduate, who was raped along a path on her way home from college who said she was so bitter about the rape incident and hence she would spread HIV to as many men as possible.

Research has revealed that one person can actually infect up to 1 500 people in a year.

This happens when a man has for example, five sexual partners, who also have other men as faithful sexual partners.

The graph grows and grows, resulting in over a thousand people infected.

Amai Mugabe said at least 10 000 cases of rape are recorded annually, translating to about 27 rape cases per day.

The First Lady is an example of a mother, an aunt and a relative that has a girl child who has expressed so much anger about such acts.

But statistics in Zimbabwe show that rape cases have scaled up so much that even little girls hardly in their teens get raped. Rapists are ordinary men just being inhumane.

Not so long ago, authorities in central China executed a former Communist Party official for raping 11 underage girls following an online uproar about abuse of power.

Li Xingong, who was the party’s deputy head in Yongeheng in Henan Province, was found guilty of assaulting the girls during police interrogations starting from the second half of 2011.

But we have politicians in Zimbabwe that have been linked to rape cases and yet these cases never get to a court of law as survivors are either married off to their abuser or an exchange of cash takes place which does not benefit the victim, but her guardians.

The abuser is set free and hunts more women or girls to deflower, repeating the same cycle of violence where they usually are let loose after paying a few hundreds dollars.

Recently, a Buhera man was allegedly set free following allegations that he had raped his two daughters and impregnated them.

The eldest, who is now 16, delivered a baby fathered by her dad. The youngest, aged 14, is carrying a full-term pregnancy and she may deliver any time this month.

When I interviewed the 16-year-old, she said she was so traumatised by the rape and that every time she breastfed her baby, the rape ordeal, which started in 2011 when she was in Grade 7,  continuously replays in her mind.

These two teenagers had been warned not to tell on their father and that if they ever did, he would strangle them.

The matter only came to light when the girls showed signs of pregnancy.

Whenever a rape occurs, it has become pretty common to hear some people dismiss it by saying that they are monsters and that no human being could ever do something like that.

They may even say that they have some mental disorder.

People can’t help but notice that among the rape cases we usually come across, the perpetrators are almost always men and the victims are mostly women.

That makes rape a much gendered act of violence.

While it is true that rape is a consequence of disrespectful and inhuman attitude towards the female gender, rape is among the most sickening abuses of power.

Those who rape, or violate others in any other ways, have a certain lack of empathy that forms the basis of humanity.

They are criminals and monsters too less capable of being human.

The mark of a man is someone who exercises control over his actions, who acknowledges his feelings and considers the consequences of his actions. Real men don’t rape.

The rise in child rape in this country is particularly worrying. Are men becoming so alienated from other people, so starved of affection that they no longer see even small children as human, as something to be protected?

I am not surprised that rape is so drastically under-reported because the reported cases are just a drop in an ocean. I am also not surprised that we keep our mouths shut, deny what has happened, downplay it and ignore it.

Victims usually do not report their ordeals and neither do they confide in family and friends.

But how many more rapes will it take before it gets safer for women and girls?

In this rape culture, it is almost dangerous to speak out as it is to keep quiet.

I, therefore, applaud Amai Mugabe, our First Lady, and Oppah Muchinguri, Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development minister, for taking the lead in speaking out on this social vice.

Yes, rapists must be punished severely, castrated or beheaded.