The Sunday News
Lynnia Ndlovu Sunday News Reporter
A GWANDA housemaid who turned to prostitution after being chased away from home by her mother, heaved a sigh of relief when a magistrate gave her a wholly suspended sentence of six months for neglecting her three-year-old daughter while going clubbing in local bars.
Claris Ndlovu (20) of Geneva suburb was convicted on her own plea of guilty to contravening a section of the Child Protection and Adoption Act (ill-treating children and young persons) Chapter 5:06 by Gwanda provincial magistrate Ms Sheila Nazombe on Wednesday.
In sentencing her, Ms Nazombe said Ndlovu was a first offender who should be given another chance to take care of the child who desperately needed a motherly love for upkeep.
“However, what aggravates the offence is that she is the biological mother of the minor who was supposed to give her the care she needed but she was the one who ill-treated her. Taking into consideration that you are a first offender and a young woman you should be given another chance to properly take care of your child,” said Ms Nazombe.
Asked by the magistrate why she committed the offence Ndlovu said she was desperate as she had no place of fixed abode as she had been ejected from home by her mother.
“My mother chased me away from home saying she could not take care of me any longer as she had been contracted to look after a child of a woman who patronise beer halls. So there was nowhere I could take the child as I was also now squatting with other girls who patronise beer halls and as for food I was getting it from men in the pubs,” said Ndlovu.
She said she once worked as a maid in Bulawayo but came back to Gwanda on 30 November to visit her child where she surrendered all her savings to her mother who in turn squandered the money.
Prosecuting Mr Takunda Mafudze said sometime in November, Ndlovu abandoned her child and went to an unknown destination leaving the child in the custody of her mother, Letty Ncube (36).
However, the mother made frantic efforts to locate her and found her at a farm close to Gwanda town on 24 January but she refused to take custody of her child.
She was taken to the police who tried to counsel her and took possession of her child back to her mother’s home.
However, when they returned home the mother indicated to Ndlovu that she and her child were not welcome at her house.
The following morning, Ndlovu left her mother’s house and dumped the child at a neighbour’s veranda and headed for the bar to have a nice time.
When the child tried to follow her she pushed her and she fell on a rock.
While Ndlovu was still basking in the joy of being set free, her mother Ncube was singing a different tune as she told Sunday News outside court that she will never take her back into her house.
“I don’t want to see her again in my house with her child; I am sick and tired of her because I am also not working. I don’t have the money to take care of the two of them, even the child alone I cannot, so Claris should take care of her daughter and leave me alone,” said Mrs Ncube.
