look their default response to the situation and enable them to make informed decisions about what they want to do and what they want for their child in light of the pregnancy. If parents and their children could be counselled on moving on in support of their children, giving them second chances and not rushing through emotional decisions, many child marriages can be prevented. As shown earlier, parents rush to chase away their child and the child also loses hope of ever making it in life save for being a fulltime housewife. Counselling services could assist in showing these children that or if they could get back to school. If they are getting into marriage because of rape, counselling could help them see that being raped is not the end of life and that there could still be another chance at fixing her life. Likewise, the counselling would help the parents to accept the new reality and not move on rather than dither with their plans for their child because she has been raped. 7.4 Eminence of the Law over Culture When a young boy impregnates a young girl, both sets of parents usually try to handle the matters using a cultural lens, using the avenues available under culture. Frequently, these avenues include appeasement of the girl’s family through the payment of cows and money as a fine, “kuripa”. While this may be effective in ordinary boy-girl relationships, the same cannot be held to be true in instances where a girl is “damaged” by an older married man. Respondents demonstrated that the cultural means of resolving these conflicts were not effective. They always left the girl at a disadvantage as the resolutions are not legally enforceable and the girl’s family has no other available recourse once the older man reneges on keeping their side of the agreement. In one instance a girl who was raped went to the police but her mother asked her to withdraw the report so that they could amicably resolve the issue with the boy’s family. The girl’s father charged the boy’s family just two cows since they believed the girl and the boy were in love. In many cases when a boy and a girl’s family resolve such conflict informally, the girl ends up marrying the boy/man. Several respondents were emphatic in stating that marriage under such circumstances is rarely the girl’s preferred option and that such marriages had high chances of being abusive. If given a choice, girls preferred to have rape cases reported to the police. However, due to the prevailing preference for culture over the law, girls effectively had no rights. Going forward, there is a need for the police and the wider communities to give eminence to the law over culture since conflict resolution using the law produces binding decisions. 7.5 Fathers must play their proper roles as fathers Most respondents alluded to the point that due to the widespread poverty and unemployment in Goromonzi many people were no longer structuring their behaviour on the axis of good moral conduct. Women were engaging in prostitution just as a way to make a living. People had generally become more materialistic and conscious of money and were actively seeking an opportunity to make a living. According to respondents, parents had abandoned their protective roles and were now actively moving away from their responsibilities as care givers and moral authorities to their children. Parents were reportedly working in cahoots with rich people in trying to marry off their daughters. This was now happening in plain view and the parents were not ashamed whether or not this would impact their relationship with their children. As shown by the narration below, fathers were also at the forefront of this dereliction of parental duty: 26