IN a rare case of domestic violence, a Mutare woman who assaulted her husband resulting in him losing three teeth and being hospitalised, has been slapped with a 15-month jail term.
Narrating his ordeal at The Mutare Magistrates’ Civil Court where he was applying for a protection order, a day after Poem Masiiwa (his wife) had been incarcerated, Livingstone Hukuimwe described their matrimonial home as a horror home where he is always at the mercy of his wife’s beatings.
“Your Worship, I get beaten up at any given chance she gets. It would have been better if she only used her hands to assault me but alas, she uses anything that she finds around her and throws it at me.
“She bites me even when I am sleeping and she threatens to poison my food or kill me while I am asleep which is why I am begging the court to order her to leave my house as soon as she finishes her sentence,” begged Hukuimwe.
He told the court that Masiiwa is not submissive to him as is expected of a traditional African wife, but rather acts as if she is the one who “wears the pants in the house bossing him around”.
Masiiwa was incarcerated last week after she was convicted of assaulting Hukuimwe. She is serving an effective 9 months jail term after six months were wholly suspended on condition of good behaviour for five years. Hukuimwe lost three teeth after his wife assaulted him with a dinner plate.
“Your Worship, my life has turned into a horror movie because of this woman, I get beat up in front of my minor children and they have lost respect towards me because of that,” he explained. Masiiwa admitted to assaulting her husband but blamed him for her actions.
“Of course, I do assault him but only because he would have provoked me by either insulting or assaulting me too. I beg that the court grants us a binding order,” she said much to the gallery’s surprise. Miss Kuture granted the binding over protection order but told Hukuimwe that it was not in the court’s jurisdiction to divorce them, she advised him to divorce her customarily or apply at the High Court if he no longer wanted her as his wife. Earlier on, Masiiwa appeared before Magistrate Innocent Bepura who convicted and sent her to prison.
“You do not deserve community service or a fine but a short custodial sentence that will help lessen domestic violence cases that are frequenting the nation in this day,” he said.
