Masvingo – Parents in Masvingo province are breathing fire over what they have branded a rapist habit, by teachers who are supposed to be guardians during their absence. Parents who have organised themselves, to demonstrate at all victim schools, that have recorded rape cases by teachers, are appealing to relevant authorities for the castration of all criminal teachers.
“We are now shattered of habitual rapist teachers who are sexually abusing our unsuspecting and innocent children. We want them castrated and also locked for a long time in custody, to implant distress in their colleagues, who might want to do the same,” said Mr Enock Chiumburu, a parent and village head.
Another villager and relative to one of the abused girl child, told ZimEye that she will fight to the bitter end, to make sure that all rapist teachers are castrated and sentenced to death. “We have organised ourselves as parents from three districts of Masvingo, Zaka, Gutu and Bikita, to lobby for the castration of all perpetrators of rape at all our schools,” said Mrs Rudo Chatira.
Recently, a teacher at Makwau Secondary School in Zaka allegedly raped one of his Form 2 pupils after he proposed love to her and she eventually accepted.
It is alleged that the teacher, Tawanda Zinyemba started proposing love to the pupil (name withheld because of age) in 2014 when she was 14-years-old.
Zinyemba would ask the victim to take some pupils’ exercise books to his house for marking and tell her to wait for him in the house. He proposed love to her but she initially refused.
As a way to persuade the pupil, Zinyemba started to give her money so that she would comply. The teacher allegedly continued giving her money until she consented to having sexual intercourse with him.
The matter came to light when some villagers from Mawoneke under Chief Nyakunhuwa became suspicious on the way the pupil was behaving. They probed the girl and she disclosed everything, including their sexual expedites in class rooms.
The matter was reported under case number 3703/2015 at Zaka Police, and the teacher appeared before Zaka Magistrates Courts.
Meanwhile, another Gutu teacher, Simon Gwatiringa, appeared in court for raping a 15 year old form three student, after buying her food and school uniform, a situation that seduced the girl into submitting to the rapist teacher’s intention. The matter is still in the courts at Gutu.
Last month in Bulawayo, a Form two teacher was sentenced to 21 years in prison, after he was convicted of sodomising six teenager boys on several occasions, during break and lunch time.