Abducted Chimanimani girls returned, one still missing

By Helen Kadirire

HARARE -Two of the three girls abducted in Chimanimani were returned to a local police station on June 29, by an unidentified person.

Hazel and Tatenda Marirwana are reported to have been released to the police while the whereabouts of Tilda Mutisi, their cousin, is still unknown.

In a telephone interview with the Daily News, the girls’ mother, Mai Marirwana said she was called by an unknown man saying her daughters had been handed over at the local police station.

Marirwana said she was still confused as to where the daughters were and how they came to be at Chimanimani Police Station.

“They kept telling me to go and collect my girls but the police had not yet contacted me.”

The mother said the man also told her if she did not hasten to collect the girls, they would be dumped by a roadblock near Machongwe Business Centre.

“When the police eventually came through, they just told me to come and fetch the girls but I refused,” she said.

The mother of the two said she was confused because despite being told that her daughters and niece were in police custody, a relative of hers informed her that one of the missing girls was seen in Dangamvura with a police officer.

Marirwana insisted she would not take the girls until they were taken to a medical facility for medical check-ups as she feared they could have been sexually abused.

When the girls went missing, Marirwana claimed that they had been abducted by a local businessman (name withheld) who was hiding them to conceal the sexual abuse.

Last week, Grace Chirenje of the Zimbabwe Young Women’s Network for Peace Building, said the conspiracy of silence surrounding the girls was a microcosm of women rights violations such as rape that go either unreported or under-reported. Daily News