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Fungai Lupande Court Reporter
Harare magistrate Sandra Mupindu yesterday described the rape of an eight-year-old who suffered extensive multiple tears of the hymen as horrific as something she had never dealt with in her 10-years of experience. The eight-year-old, who was raped twice by a 32-year-old man, knelt at the crime scene after failing to walk home.

She was rescued two hours later by her mother who was looking for her and she was subsequently hospitalised. The rapist, Josphat Zivakwi, was sentenced to an effective 18 years in jail. In passing sentence Mupindu said the girl suffered extensive multiple tears.

“In my 10-years experience as a magistrate, I have never met such a disturbing medical report. “What makes the offence aggravating is that the rapist is 32 years old. The little girl is traumatised,” she said. The prosecutor Ressy Nyamombe told the court that the girl is a grade 2 pupil.

On July 1 this year around 6pm the girl was on her way home from school alone. She met Zivakwi who was in the company of another man. The trio walked a distance together because she knew them. As the girl was to take a separate way home Zivakwi told his companion that he was taking her home.

Zivakwi went with the girl and it was getting dark. He then dragged the girl into a nearby bush and pushed her to the ground. The court heard that he gagged the eight-year-old’s mouth and raped her twice. Zivakwi fled and left the girl in the bush.

She crawled to the road and was found by her mother after two hours, kneeling at the crime scene. She was rushed to Norton Hospital where she was admitted.