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Rape

Mbuso Ndlovu, Chronicle Reporter
SOME centuries ago a philosopher by the name Rabindranath Tagore claimed if you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars. Opportunities will always be there for you, but you won’t see them because you are focused on the wrong object.

R Julian Gordon goes on to say; “Love is not blind, it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.”
Man out there I feel you. We have been labelled potential rapists without proof whatsoever. Our daughters and wives of course have been alienated from us only on the basis of our being males notwithstanding the FACT that we bore our daughters.
My God Jahoviah Allah please protect ALL men from themselves and the society at large.

Love is not blind, it sees more, not less.

Recently an unfortunate Tsholotsho tot found herself pregnant and the first port of call was her equally unfortunate prejudiced stereotyped father. He had to be responsible, nobody else. He is a man, isn’t he? All men are potential rapists we have all been told by feminists out there. One would think they never give birth to boys the way they loathe men. Fighting erstwhile partners to the extent of dragging everyone is just unjustified.

The girl’s father was only freed last week and it is sad nobody believed him even when he swore on his parents. Courts and DNA exonerated him but he was still incarcerated for a yet to be known reason. Most probably just because he is a man and a father. Therefore he was the first and only suspect.

Isn’t it now an infamous song that ALL men are potential rapists thus alienating fathers from their daughters, and brothers from their sisters. Now the man has been cleared but he cannot get jobs as a builder because nobody can trust him anymore. Who will compensate him?

Just a week ago a 13-year-old boy was sexually abused and RAPED by his mother’s 24-year-old friend overnight in his own home when his mother was away. Had he not been infected with an STI the world would not have known about the RAPE. He only told his mother because he was in pain and she reported her “friend” to police. BUT nobody will ever say ALL women are potential rapists, never!

House maids have been abusing boys every week and worse still during school holidays BUT nobody says all maids are potential rapists.

Recently we were all shocked reading of a mother who came upon her husband raping their 11-year-old daughter and to avenge that she went on to RAPE their 13-year-old son. The case only came to light when a relative saw the kids being “intimate” with other kids. Still nobody ever says ALL parents are potential rapists. But the father will rightly fully pay for his rape shenanigans while the mother unjustly goes scotfree or on a lesser indecent assault charge and even a suspended sentence.

Of late both female and male teachers, doctors and nurses have been in the news for sexual abuse BUT nobody says females are potential rapists. At law in Zimbabwe females can only aggressively abuse our sons even though there is penetration that may even result in long term mental and physical trauma and sexually transmitted diseases.

Isn’t it time that Zimbabwean men approached Parliament for redress. We are not potential rapists but caring, loving, nurturing albeit reticent fathers. How many of those who habitually portray men as potential rapists have ever personally come across one man whom they know to have abused his daughter?

All of us have just read about it in the Chronicle, Sunday News, Umthunywa or B-Metro. But how many men are we acquainted with and has any of them ever abused a kid, no. At our workplace how many men have been there all the years, have we ever heard of any being arraigned for rape? No.

Most of us will confess that even in our own suburbs or churches we have never heard of any man arrested for rape but we still feel comfortable labelling ALL men as potential rapists who cannot be accorded the opportunity to fully play a part in raising their own daughters yet some women have abused their sons and nobody labels ALL women as potential child rapists or baby dumpers. It is known that mothers are individuals but fathers well, they are not. Only men are responsible for foundlings so it seems.

So fathers this Christmas and New Year can only pay for their daughters’ holidays but cannot be there with them unless the erstwhile lovers, the mothers, are there. What of those fathers who are obliged by the courts to pay for their kids’ holidays, does it mean that “uncles”, the mother’s boyfriend, gets to enjoy a Victoria Falls holiday while the father can not take his children there in the mother’s absence yet a stranger who can be trusted by the mother can.

This attitude unfortunately encourages men to quickly remarry as soon as a wife dies as society cannot trust men to independently competently raise their daughters on their own, even with a maid. Recently a South African man was lambasted on social media for remarriage “just” five months after his wife’s death. How long was he expected to stay single? By who? We all know life is very short and if he was convinced she’s the one then why waste time? Probably he wanted to safeguard his daughters from himself. Our women must learn to forgive their men and dump grudges as they move on.

Sexual abuse

May mothers regain their love for sons. It used to be prestigious to give birth to boys, not that it was justified, but the correction must not prejudice the male child throughout his life.