A male pressure group, Varume Svinurai/Vhukani Madoda, yesterday said Parliament should consider crafting laws that protect men from sexual abuse given reports that incidents of men falling victim to female rapists were on the rise.
Report by Veneranda Langa
National co-ordinator of the group Fred Misi told NewsDay in an interview that in 2011 they approached Parliament to lobby for the inclusion of clauses that specifically protected men from abuse through the Domestic Violence Act, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.
“The laws of this country and the Domestic Violence Act do not adequately protect male victims of domestic and other forms of violence. Most of these victims are not taken seriously when they raise complaints that they have been victimised or raped by women,” said Misi.
“MPs need to go back to the drawing board and consider these issues because in 2011 we went before the Parliamentary Thematic Committee on Gender and Development and said they needed to review the Domestic Violence Act, but nothing is happening,” he said.
Misi said even in marital situations men in Zimbabwe were being subjected to sexual abuse, but no one seems to believe this could happen.
“Our organisation has received many complaints from men that have been raped inside marriages when, for instance, they come back from work very tired and their wives force them to sexually pleasure them. Such cases are not being taken seriously by our laws. Many boys are being sexually abused by housemaids or female relatives at a young age, but those cases are not taken seriously,” he said.
He said there have been arguments that it was impossible to rape a man, but it had emerged through cases of female rapists that concoctions were being used on men to stimulate them even if they were resisting.
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“In some cases they are injected with a substance that get them to become involuntarily sexually aroused. At one time we handled a case of a man who was injected with this substance and became so sexually aroused he had to perform for long hours until his body was heavily drained,” Misi said.
Women’s Action Group director Edinah Masiyiwa, however, said abused men were also protected under the Domestic Violence Act.
“Maybe there is more emphasis on protection of women because 80% of sexual abuse is perpetrated on the fairer sex, but violence on males or females should not be tolerated,” Masiyiwa said.
