Women and children activists yesterday piled pressure on under-fire Prosecutor–General Johannes Tomana as they took to the streets in Harare protesting against his statement that girls as young as 12 can consent to sex.
Tomana has received a lot of backlash from civil society and independent commentators for his statement.
Accompanied by anti-riot police in the usual heavy gear, the demonstrators started from Town House right up to the offices of the Ministry of Justice where a petition was handed over to the permanent secretary.
Speaking to journalists after the handover of the petition, Talent Jumo of Katswe Sistahood said they were not backing down from their call for Tomana to resign as he had failed in his mandate to ensure that the faulty laws were aligned with the Constitution that provides better protection for children especially girl children.
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“Tomana should just resign because he has failed to carry out his duties with diligence. Our petition clearly spells that out,” she said.
Although the turnout for the march — which ran under the theme The Call is for the President to Relieve Tomana of His Duties, as a Matter of Urgency! — was low, the participants were upbeat and said they had achieved the objective of the march.
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“Our intention was to march and hand over the petition and we did just that numbers or not,” said a defiant Jumo.
Tomana courted the ire of many when he said girls as young as 12 must be listened to by the courts if they wished to start families with older men because they were capable of consenting to sex.
In a statement, Child Rights Movement said they were outraged by Tomana’s utterances which contradicted the country’s bid to end child marriages. Zimbabwe is among countries with highest rates of child marriages.
“Every girl deserves a chance to become a fully productive adult woman. We call for an immediate retraction of his statements,” read the statement.
