The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa
Weekender Correspondent
A Sakubva couple’s home has become a boxing ring as the man accuses his live-in partner of disrespecting him for not paying her bride price and bashes her each time she brings up the subject.
Israel Ganda cannot stomach being labelled a live-in boyfriend by the mother of his two children, Rufaro Chiripashi.
Having had enough of Ganda’s physical abuse, Chiripashi sought the court’s intervention and applied for a protection order against the former.
Mutare magistrate, Mr Xavier Chipato presided over the matter.
In her application, Chiripashi stated that Ganda is a violent person.
“I do not understand what gets into him when I ask him about the lobola issue. After all, I gave birth to his two sons,” she said.
“My reminders to him on the need to pay something to my parents seem to be falling on deaf ears. We have been together for six years and each time I try to remind him of the customary obligation for him to pay my lobola, he becomes violent, breaks our property and assaults me,” she said.
In response, Ganda denied ever assaulting his wife over the lobola matter.
“She reminds me every day that I am her live-in boyfriend as I have not paid anything to her parents. I am a poor man and cannot afford to raise the lobola,” he said.
Ganda also said Chiripashi disrespects him.
He, however, said he will not be inconvenienced if Chiripashi is granted a protection order against him.
Mr Chipato granted the protection order, which will be valid for five years, to Chiripashi.
Ganda was ordered to stop assaulting or insulting his wife.
