The Sunday News
Michael Magoronga, Midlands Correspondent
THE Kwekwe Child Protection Unit which is a thematic sub-committee of the district’s Civil Protection Unit has engaged the Apostolic sects in the district in a bid to raise awareness on dangers of marrying off or marrying under-aged girls.
The team last week visited Mbizo 21 where the majority of Johane Marange Apostolic sect members live and held talks with the church elders as well as the Machaya family. The development comes following the death of Anna Machaya (14) early this month while giving birth at an Apostolic shrine in Marange, Manicaland Province.
Anna’s parents, Edmore Machaya (45) and Shy Mabika (36), who are from Kwekwe’s Mbizo 21, have since been arrested and charged with defeating the course of justice were remanded in custody to 9 September by a Kwekwe magistrate.
The perpetrator, Hatirarami Momberume was also arrested on murder charges as well as having sexual intercourse with a minor. The engagement by the CPU follows reports that the Machaya family intended to pledge the late Anna’s nine-year-old younger sister as “compensation”, a development which the CPU swiftly moved in to successfully thwart. Kwekwe CPU chairperson who is also Kwekwe District Development Coordinator, Mr Fortune Mpungu confirmed the engagement.
“It is true that we visited the Machaya family in Mbizo 21 after receiving the news that they wanted to give away the nine-year-old girl as replacement for the late Anna. We did not want to rely on hearsay and wait until it happened so we had to be proactive and visit the family to try and ascertain whether it was true or not,’ said Mr Mpungu.
He said the family and the rest of the church elders were not forthcoming and refused to share information.
“In fact, when we arrived, they told us that both the father (Edmore Machaya) and the mother (Shy Mabika) were not there. We had to talk to Machaya’s father Matewu Machaya who denied that.”
He however, said some inside sources had it on good authority that the family had pledged the Grade 2 pupil until they decided to forego the plan after they learnt that the issue was now in public domain. Going forward, Mr Mpungu said they will continue monitoring the situation as well as efforts to engage the Apostolic sects to raise awareness against child marriages and sexual exploitation of girls and women.
“We are continuing with our engagements as a district because we have quite a number of them in the district. We intend to raise awareness and talk to them on the negative impacts of marrying under aged girls among other social ills. We just hope they will be forthcoming,” he said.
Kwekwe has become a second home for the white garment churches with a number of them settled in Mbizo 21, 22 and in resettlement farms just outside Kwekwe. A number of cases of child marriages and women exploitation have been reported from those areas where one man can have as many as 10 or more wives, most of them under-aged.
