CHAPTER 3: THE CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES This section captures the children’s stories. These are set out as told to the interviewers by the children themselves, their parents or guardian or both. Their names and those of the perpetrators have been changed to try and protect the identities of the children. 3.1. ANYONE CAN ABUSE YOUR CHILD; TRUST NO ONE: Chipo’s STORY The social and economic woes that have plagued the country over the last 14 years have had a tremendous personal and social cost. As the economy got worse with the world’s highest levels of hyper inflation and severe job losses, Zimbabweans left the country in droves to seek better economic and social opportunities abroad. A lot of families were split as breadwinners left the country hoping to earn enough money to look after families and children left behind in Zimbabwe. Children were left in the care of relatives and in some instance this has resulted in abuse of these children. Chipo’s story is a case in point. Chipo’s father, Tongai, died in 2007. She was an only child. Following his death, Chipo’s mother Revai decided to make the long trek to South Africa to look for employment, leaving Chipo in the care of her younger sister Joyce and her husband Washington. Since then, Revai has been diligently working as a domestic worker and sending money home to her young sister not just for Chipo’s upkeep and education, but also for Joyce and her family’s upkeep since Joyce is not employed. In return, Revai hoped Joyce and Washington would be parents to Chipo and provide the care that she could not. Each year, Chipo’s mother would religiously bank her time off from her job as a maid in order to get time off every December. She would then use this time to visit Chipo and the rest of her family during the Christmas holidays. In between these visits, Revai would call her sister to find out how Chipo was doing. It was during one such phone call, that Revai’s world came crumbling down. She was to be told news that she could hardly comprehend but that would shatter her family and life as she had known it. One day Revai received a phone call from her sister who wanted to report that she was having problems with Chipo who was being naughty and that her husband had had to reprimand her. Revai was shocked because Chipo was ordinarily a well behaved child and she had not had any prior complaints of this nature. She immediately called Chipo who initially denied that there was anything wrong. Upon further questioning her, Chipo asked her mother to immediately come back home because something was very wrong. Chipo then told her mother that her aunt’s husband (John) had raped her 3 times with the first attempt having been in 2010. Chipo had told her aunt who had accused Chipo of wanting to seduce her husband and this had led to Joyce calling Revai and complaining about Chipo’s supposed misconduct. 14 10