A Ndola woman has reported her husband to police for allegedly defiling her 13-year-old niece.
The woman has asked police in Ndola to arrest her husband, a Mr Chembe, who is currently on the run.
She said in an interview that her husband deserved to be jailed for destroying her niece’s life.
“I have personally reported that monster to the police. He deserves to be arrested and I am ready to testify in court against him. There is no way I can be living with a man who has no respect for me and my family. What that man did to my niece is unforgivable,” she said.
She said that on Monday, she had gone to the salon and on her way back home, her husband asked her to wait for him at the bus station in Chifubu.
She said when her husband arrived, he took her to a boutique, where he told her to find a top since he did not buy her anything on her birthday.
She said she did not find anything that she liked and demanded to go home since she needed to buy food for dinner.
“He refused that I should go and kept me at the market, where he even started drinking beer. I told him that I needed to call home so that I could tell my niece to cook some vegetables but he refused and grabbed the phone from me. After some time, I insisted that I wanted to go home to cook, but he told me that we instead buy eggs, which were easy to prepare,” she said.
She said later, on their way home, Chembe told her that he had beaten her niece because he found her playing when she was supposed to be doing house chores.
“I looked at him and wondered what was going on. I told him that if he was disciplining her, then it was okay but I wasn’t happy and I needed to find out what was going on. At home, I asked my niece what had happened because she was looking depressed. In his presence, she told me that my husband had forced himself on her and beat her afterwards, warning her to keep quiet about it,” she said.
She said her niece told her that Chembe came home and wanted to bath and she quickly prepared the water for him.
She said after bathing, Chembe, who was just in a towel, found the girl sleeping and he grabbed her and had sex with her on the carpet.
“The girl was wearing pants, leggings and a chitenge on top, and by force, my husband managed to undress the girl and forced his way in. The girl cried and some neighbours heard some noise, but he covered her mouth. My niece got a shoe which was nearby and started hitting him with it. He did not lock the door and my niece’s friend walked in to find out what was going on. She found my husband naked on top of my niece. That’s when she ran out and called some people to help,” she said.
She said by the time people were coming, her husband was dressed and beating her niece, adding that the man denied having sex with the girl.
“There is no way a girl can lie over such. I was upset and called my brothers and his relatives. When they came, we took the girl to the hospital and she was examined. It was proved that she was defiled. She was given medicine but it is making her sick and she is vomiting a lot. My husband has since run away but the next day, I reported the matter to Chifubu police,” she said.
She said she has nothing to do with Chembe because he was evil and that her two-year marriage with him was a mistake.
“Women are fond of protecting their husbands in the name of saving their marriages. Don’t do it. Report to the police and the law should deal with him. These are people who are destroying the future of young girls. Protecting a husband who is a defiler is not love; it is foolishness. Women, a defiler is not worth loving or dying for, he deserves to be jailed. Women should stand together to fight these men. We have the law on our side, let’s protect the girl child,” she said.