Muchinguri backs beheading of rapists

via Muchinguri backs beheading of rapists 19 June 2014 by Staff Reporter

PEOPLE who rape should be beheaded, Women Affairs minister, Oppah Muchinguri has said, joining First Lady Grace Mugabe who made a similar call weekend.

Muchinguri, addressing a rape awareness campaign in Harare, said sentences currently being passed by the courts were relaxed hence the need to be tougher and execute those who abuse women.

“Rapists should face lifetime imprisonment, in fact I support what Amai Grace Mugabe has called for, even having their heads cut is very essential,” she said.

“We have people like Robert Gumbura (Jailed rapist) and they should not die in jail. This is time for action, no theorising but action,” she said.

Grace Mugabe told a World Blood donor day celebration in Chinhoyi over the weekend that rapists should be beheaded as a way of ending the vice and to deter potential offenders.

“What has become of our society when a two month old baby is raped by her father; when a five year old baby raptures a uterus after being raped by an uncle, when a 104 year old grandmother is raped by a 22 year old man?” Muchinguri asked.

“What has happened to our churches when Satanism seems to be in control, with certain men of the cloth preying on their flock and when traditional healers prescribe raping of minors by their fathers as a way of getting rich or curing HIV and Aids?”

From statistics released by authorities from 2012 up until the first quarter of this year, 3 571 adult women were raped while 7 411 children were abused.

When Grace Mugabe made the statement regarding the beheading of rapists, it sparked an uproar from the general public with some pointing out that the practice was from the dark ages and primitive.

But Muchinguri said it was the only way to reduce the vice which is now a threat especially to the future of school going girls.