Husband and Wife Persecuted in Zimbabwe

A man and woman who have been living as a married couple and have five children together were criminally prosecuted in Zimbabwe. Why? Because they have the same mother. Don’t the authorities have better things to do than interefere in the love lives of people? At least they weren’t sentenced to prison.

The two “love birds” who shared the same mother but have different fathers were staying with their mother when they fell in love. This incident was heard on the appearance of Vusa Moyo and his half sister Makadi Moyo who were convicted on their own plea of guilty when they appeared before Plumtree magistrate, Mr Mark Dzira, for contravening section 75 (11)(c ) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act Chapter 9:23, having sexual intercourse within a prohibited degree of relationship.

That law should be changed so as to not apply to consensual sex.

Mr Paul Mpofu, for the State, told the court that in 1990 Vusa and Makadi started staying together while in the custody of their mother Siphameso Moyo in Plumtree.

In a period unknown to the prosecutor but in 1997 the two fell in love and had sexual intercourse several times up to the day they were arrested.

It is understood the two were now staying as wife and husband in their mother’s homestead and through this incestuous relationship the “couple” had five children.

What with the scare quotes in this article? They are a couple. They are love birds. Isn’t that obvious?

On 29 September this year police received a tip-off from members of the public about this bizarre affair and carried out some investigations before arresting them and subsequently taking them to court where they admitted the offence.

Bizarre? Love is not bizarre. Everyone involved in their prosecution should be ashamed of themselves, including the blabbermouth who turned them in instead of minding his or her own business. The person was probably jealous.

Asked by the court why they had committed the offence the woman said that she did not know it was an offence.

The real offence is how offensive it is that they were prosecuted intead of offered legal recognition of their marriage.

However the man had a different reason altogether and told the court he had fallen in love his half sister.

He added that he had the right to marry his half sister as she was no longer her relative arguing that they had cut off the relationship through traditional means.

I noticed that even this biased news article can’t point out any harm that has resulted from this marrage.

In the end, this magistrate essentially berated them for being in love and sharing a life together, but saw that sticking them in jail would only hurt their children.

Enough with this sort of thing. People have a right to love, sex, and marriage, and the laws need to catch up to that.