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Whinsley Masara Court Reporter
A FORTY SIX year-old Bulawayo man has been arrested for allegedly raping his wife once in violation of a court order barring him from having sexual intercourse with her without her consent.Jothius Mleya who lives at McDonald’s Bricks along Gwanda road in Bulawayo where he works as a security guard raped his wife after visiting the family at Mazwi village to see his ailing son who stays with the wife.

The husband and wife slept in the same room, the man on the bed and the wife on the floor, but separated by a court order that bars Mleya from being intimate with his wife without her consent.

It was not immediately clear when the order was issued and why the alleged rapist’s wife applied for it.

However, after sleeping for a while, Mleya joined his wife on the floor and raped her once.

The man appeared before magistrate Tancy Dube facing a rape charge.

He was not asked to plead and was remanded in custody to June 11.

Prosecuting, Nomzamo Ndlovu told the court that on March 10, 2015, Mleya was informed that his son was not feeling well.

“The accused and complainant in this case are husband and wife. On the 10th of March 2015, the accused person went to the complainant’s place of residence to see his son who wasn’t feeling well. After attending to his son, the accused person went to sleep in the same room with the complainant,” said Ndlovu.

“The complainant was sleeping on the floor and the accused on the bed.

“The accused person got down and forcibly had sexual intercourse with the complainant once without her consent thereby violating the protection order which bars the accused person from having sexual intercourse with the complainant without her consent.”

The matter was reported to the police leading to Mleya’s arrest.

In 2013, a soldier based at Induna Barracks in Bulawayo was slapped with a twelve-year jail sentence for raping his 22-year-old wife.

According to court records, the 27-year-old locked up his wife in the bedroom, stuffed her mouth with a dirty wet shirt, and tied her hands with an electrical cable.

He also tied her legs with a piece of wire and brutally raped her.

Cases of marital rape are common but they go unreported.

Women’s rights activists say a lot of women are raped by their husbands in Zimbabwe but most of them do not report such cases because they fear destroying their marriages.

Married women had no legal protection until 2001 when the Sexual Offences Act came into effect, making marital rape a punishable crime.

According to the Act, marital rape is considered like any other rape.