Bulawayo man impregnates his step daughter

in court

A 34 year old man and a 21-year-old woman from Cowdray Park in Bulawayo who had the guts of being intimate fully aware that they were related.

The two were slapped with three years imprisonment and 630 hours of community service respectively.


Gift Mativenga and Brenda Bhebhe of 9232 Cowdray Park were both found guilty of having sexual intercourse within a prohibited degree of relationship as defined in Section 75 of the Criminal Law (Codification And Reform) Act Chapter 9:23.

Western Commonage magistrate, Mr Mafios Moyo, presided over the case while Mr Khumbulani Ndlovu and Ms Sibekithemba Dube prosecuted.
The court heard that some time in November 2008 Bhebhe came from Lower Gweru to visit her mother, Miss Catharine Washaya, in Bulawayo, who had married Mativenga.

The couple had been married for 11 years through a customary union. Bhebhe was introduced to Mativenga by her mother as her stepfather.  It is during this period that Mativenga proposed love to Bhebhe who in turn accepted the proposal and the two had an affair.

Miss Washaya, who had noticed that her daughter’s sleeping pattern had changed, asked her whether she was pregnant, but she denied. In a bid to get to the bottom of the issue, Miss Washaya went on to inquire from her husband, who spilled the beans and told her that Bhebhe was pregnant with his child.

The court heard that some time in September 2009, a baby boy was born and Miss Washaya reported the matter to Luveve Police Station leading to the two’s arrest.

In defence the two told the court, through their lawyer Mr Jacob Mudenda of Hara and Partners, that when Bhebhe came from Lower Gweru to visit her mother, Miss Washaya did not introduce her to Mativenga as her daughter.

In fact they told the court Miss Washaya had told Bhebhe never to reveal herself as her daughter to Mativenga. Against this background, Mativenga said, according to his Shona culture, it was not a crime to propose love to Bhebhe, whom he said was her sister-in-law.

However, the magistrate in passing his sentence said the State proved beyond reasonable doubt that the two knew of their relationship before they established their incestuous affair.

He described Mativenga as unrepentant since he continued to stay with Bhebhe when he had been told in the course of their trial that she was his stepdaughter.

The magistrate had no kind words for Bhebhe and Mativenga and described their behaviour as not only criminal but immoral.

“How can a man have sexual intercourse with both the mother and her daughter and continue to live with them in the same house? How can a daughter allow herself to have sexual intercourse with her mother’s husband; that is her father?

“Besides being criminal this conduct is morally unacceptable in human beings except perhaps in cows and bulls and animals in general,” said Mr Moyo.