Nkosentsha Khumalo
Acting on a tantrum fueled by uncotrolles temper, a Mutare woman has been hurled before the Magistrates Court for battering her own biological daughter with a half-brick.
The 11-year- old daughter met her mother’s wrath when she failed to wash dishes as she had been instructed.
In as much as she was chastening the young girl, the punishement has been deemed harsh and unlawful by authorities, leaving the mother to dance with the law.
This heartbreaking incident exposes a deeper underlying cause, one that has plagued the African parenting landscape for decades, strictness, sometimes bordering on brutality, in disciplining children.
The mother’s brutality towards her child serves as a stark reminder of the detrimental impact of excessive parental strictness.
Her draconian punishment, did not only fractured the delicate mother-child bond but also exposed the hidden wounds of a deeply entrenched cultural practice, the harsh discipline and authoritarian parenting styles that continue to plague many African families.
With the rise of a new generation of young people in the 2000s, this trend is being called into question, as society seeks to strike a balance between discipline and respect for children’s rights.
While trying to instil discipline unto the child, the mother crossed the threshold of permissible parenting and entered the murky waters of criminal conduct.
Mutare Magistrates Court sentenced Debra Masese (33), mother to the 11-year- old daughter, to a 24-month imprisonment for using a half-brick as a weapon for discipline her 11-year-old daughter.
The court condemned Masese’s draconian parenting style, which stood in stark contrast to the progressive ideals that Zimbabwean society is striving to embrace.
According to the National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe (NPAZ), Debra Masese was paraded before the Mutare Magistrates’ Court to face charges of heinous physical abuse against her own daughter.
The State’s case, airtight as a prison cell, laid bare a chilling act of violence that stained the Masese household with regret.
State revelations are that, on a seemingly unassuming day in April 2024, the accused, a mother, subjected her 11-year-old daughter to a merciless battering with a half-brick.
Earlier in time, Masese had gone into the tangled streets of town, leaving young Makanaka in the care of her brother.
Upon returning home, Debra Masese was fired up by the sight of unwashed plates, metamorphosised into a tempestuous brute, hurling a half-brick at her defenseless daughter. The pummeled child went into a state of unconsciousness.
Masese, seeking to mask her despicable brutality with concern, whisked the battered victim, who was trembling and bleeding, off to a clinic.
However, the shadows of justice were gathering, as an anonymous tip-off brought the cloak of secrecy to a dramatic end.
When the young girl was revived she was interviewed and she revealed the truth.
This resulted in Masese’s arrest and subsequent arraignment in court.
The iron hammer of justice fell upon Debra Masese, as she was arraigned in Mutare Magistrates’ Court for the violent charge of physical abuse against her own flesh and blood.
The prosecution’s meticulous proof, as strong and unyielding as the half-brick Masese allegedly wielded, laid bare an ugly truth, that a mother had become a monster, hurling her own child into the realm of fear and pain.
Masese was then sentenced to 24 months, with 8 months suspended and will serve an effective 16 months in prison.
Zim GBC News ©2024