State ordered to compensate rape victim

By The NewsDay | Nov. 5, 2015 | 2 Min read

Home Affairs minister Ignatius Chombo and Health and Child Care minister David Parirenyatwa were yesterday jointly ordered to pay $6 500 as compensation to a Chegutu woman, Mildred Mapingure, who gave birth to a child after being raped by robbers nine years ago.

BY CHARLES LAITON

The order by High Court judge, Justice Ester Muremba, followed last year’s Supreme Court ruling, where the court held that the two ministries acted negligently by failing to take measures to prevent Mapingure’s pregnancy soon after she had reported her ordeal to the police on April 2, 2006.

Last year, the Supreme Court remitted Mapingure’s claim of damages for pain and suffering to the High Court for the granting of a default judgment.

In her initial application, Mapingure had also cited Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, but the latter was absolved of any wrongdoing.

According to Mapingure, on the day in question, she was attacked and raped by robbers at her home in Chegutu. She immediately lodged a report with the police and requested to be taken to hospital for medication to prevent pregnancy and any sexually transmitted infection. Later that day, she was taken to hospital and was attended to by a doctor identified only as Kazembe, to whom she repeated her request to prevent pregnancy, but Kazembe is said to have attended to her injured knee only.

Mapingure said Kazembe told her he could only attend to her request for preventive medication in the presence of a police officer and further indicated that the medication had to be administered within 72 hours of the sexual intercourse having occurred.

However, efforts to get assistance from the police and the hospital proved futile, resulting in Mapingure giving birth in December of the same year.