HARARE – Police are now treating the death of a 14-year-old girl during child birth at a church shrine in Marange as a possible murder after the investigation was handed over to the Criminal Investigations Department’s Homicide division in Harare.
Marange falls under Manicaland province, but detectives from the eastern border town of Mutare were barred from entering the shrine of the secretive Johanne Marange sect last month, ZimLive understands.
Memory Machaya died while giving birth on July 15. Her aunt Alice Mabika told the teen initially reported a headache, but instead of taking her to a clinic, some elderly women at the shrine smeared salt inside her mouth and poured paraffin into her nose.
She died moments after giving birth and was buried at the shrine without her mother present. The death was concealed from police.
Police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi told the ZBC on Monday evening that they had assigned a “strong team” of detectives to investigate all aspects of Memory’s death, including sex abuse by her husband Evans Momberume, concealment of a death and possible murder.
Memory’s death has brought to the fore the practice of child marriage within Zimbabwe’s apostolic churches, which also allow polygamy. She was forced to drop out of school in Mhondoro to marry Momberume.
The United Nations on Monday condemned the practice of child marriage in Zimbabwe, adding to swelling outrage among citizens and rights activists.
The government has traditionally turned a blind eye to the practice of child marriage. Zimbabwe has two sets of marriage laws, the Marriage Act and Customary Marriages Act. Neither law gives a minimum age for marriage consent, while the customary law allows polygamy.
A new marriages bill that is before parliament for debate seeks to synchronise the laws, ban marriage of anyone below 18 years and prosecute anyone involved in the marriage of a minor.
The U.N. in Zimbabwe said in a statement that it “notes with deep concern and condemns strongly” the circumstances leading to Memory’s death.
“Sadly, disturbing reports of the sexual violation of under-age girls, including forced child marriages continue to surface and indeed this is another sad case,” the U.N. said in its statement.
One in three girls in Zimbabwe was likely to be married before turning 18 years, said the U.N., whose office in Zimbabwe groups all 25 U.N. agencies operating in the country.
The Gender Commission said it was also investigating Memory’s death.
The apostolic churches, which shun hospitals, attract millions of followers with their promises to heal illnesses and deliver people from poverty.
Police have been accused of being slow to investigate the sect, a key voting constituency for Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu PF party which has turned a blind eye to ongoing abuses of children.
