Corpun file 26252 at www.corpun.com
The Chronicle, Bulawayo, 23 December 2015, p.3
Boy, 16, offers $50 lobola for pregnant girl, 13
By Leonard Ncube
Victoria Falls Reporter
A TEENAGE boy surprised a court when he produced $50 saying he had saved the money to pay lobola for his heavily pregnant 13-year-old sweetheart.
The school dropout aged 16 years from Siamele Village under Chief Shana in Jambezi, Hwange district had been dragged to court charged with three counts of raping the girl from neighbouring BH5 Mazhange village.
"May the court be lenient with me. I intend to be a responsible husband and I've saved $70 of which $50 is specifically for her lobola while the remaining $20 is for the upkeep of the baby. I'll love her until the day I die," said the boy to Hwange regional magistrate Dambudzo Malunga.
He listed before the court items he said he bought as preparation for the unborn baby and almost won the mercy of the magistrate.
The heavily pregnant girl who has also dropped out of school also appeared in court to give testimony. The boy pleaded guilty to three counts of rape. Magistrate Malunga sentenced him to receive four strokes with a rattan cane to be administered at Hwange Prison.
In addition the magistrate sentenced the boy to five years in jail which were wholly suspended for five years on condition he does not commit a similar crime.
Malunga quizzed the boy why he rushed into a sexual life as that had ruined his life to which the boy said he was ready for marriage and would love his "wife" till death.
Prosecuting, Bheki Tshabalala said the boy proposed love to the girl in April this year and the two engaged in consensual sex.
"In April the accused met the girl at a borehole and proposed love," said the prosecutor. The girl accepted, the court was told. "On May 21 the boy went to the girl's village and took her to a nearby bush where they had sex once with her consent. They had consensual sex on two different occasions during the same month," added Tshabalala.
The sexual affair came to light when the girl's aunt visited on August 11 and noticed that she was pregnant. Upon being asked, the girl revealed that she had sex with the teenage boy on numerous occasions.
The aunt told the girl's parents and her mother accompanied her to the police to report a case of rape leading to the boy's arrest.
