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Contradictory
sentencing of child abusers
Z. Bangani, National Coordinator
African Network for the Prevention
and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) Zimbabwe
August 29, 2002
It is only a few days when we commented
on the case of a child who was sodomised by the father 29 times,
infected by HIV and later died. The abuser was freed on a $10,000
bail pending trial. In the 27th August issue of ’The
Herald’, there was an article, ‘Teenager jailed for raping minor’.
In this case the rapist is 17 years and the victim is a two and
a half year old girl. He was sentenced to 5 years of which two were
conditionally suspended. The trial magistrate calls this a deterrent
sentence while confirming that rape ‘is a very serious offence with
traumatic effects on victims’. Despite the fact that this is a juvenile,
at his age it is clear that he knows of what he committed as a serious
criminal offence and that is why he denied it in the first place.
If we draw you back to a ruling made
in the same courts on 22nd November 2001, it would be
more amazing. In this case before the honourable magistrate Mrs.
Chaponda, a 19 year old man who had raped his two nieces aged 5
and 6 years was sentenced to 12 years in jail. He had committed
the offence at 17 years. The magistrate rightly said that even though
the abuser was young when he committed the offences, a stiffer sentence
was called for, and further said, ‘rape is a traumatic experience
which has permanent effects especially on defenceless minors’.
There are many such contradictory sentences
that we may mention with regards to sentencing of child abusers.
It would not take a genius to ask what parameters are used in our
courts to determine how more ‘traumatic’ some cases are on the child
victims than others. There would therefore be no justification in
sentencing one for only three years after defiling a minor of two
and a half years unless it was a different charge (other than rape).
On what basis also, do you free a man whose aim was killing his
son, to stay in the same environment with his prey (who luckily
for him, died)? Probably the basis is on our legal system. What
one would further ask is whether the magistrates’ discretion is
permissible beyond obvious reasoning or we lack a good legal framework
for effectively and decisively dealing with cases of sexual assault
of minors before our courts. The discretion also seems to be exercised
in such a varied way that one wonders whether we are working on
the same backgrounds.
As an organisation involved in advocating
for children’s rights, ANPPCAN Zimbabwe chapter is appealing to
the courts to reconsider how the exercising of their discretion
affects the already traumatized child victims of abuse before them.
The decisions seem to be made knowing that there is something called
‘best interest of the child’ but in the least way exercise the same.
(ANPPCAN Zimbabwe is the national Chapter
of the African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against
Child Abuse and Neglect, a Pan African organisation with branches
in 16 African Countries. It has an observer status at the AU –formerly,
OAU)
Visit the ANPPCAN
Zimbabwe
fact
sheet
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