Nine-year old rape victim delivers by C-section

The nine-year-old Tsholotsho rape victim has delivered by caesarean operation at United Bulawayo Hospitals.

No official comment has been issued by the hospital but sources confirmed delivery of the baby and no information is available on health status of the mother or child.

Officials had recently indicated that the minor was now in the period when she would be operated on to deliver the baby as her body is too immature for standard childbirth.

The girl did not realise that she was pregnant, believing that she has a medical condition which needed an operation to remove the growth in her stomach.

A decision was made to not reveal to the victim that she is a mother just as yet, to allow her to continue with her brutally interrupted childhood and go back to school.

The rape victim has not named her rapist with DNA tests expected to help police identify the criminal.

Statistics show that most child rape crimes are perpetrated by relatives followed by close family friends with less than one percent being committed by strangers.

A woman who fostered the girl for a while after the pregnancy and thus the rape was discovered has said that the victim revealed that the rape took place repeatedly.

The victim also shared that her father would tell her that the rapist was a supernatural entity who entered through the window during the night.

The father would then close the window after the minor’s ordeal. The rape stopped happening when the girl moved out of her parents’ bedroom to share a room with cousins who had come over to live with the family.

The father of the minor was arrested on 29 August and is assisting police with investigations.

The girl had gone into early adolescence prompting her family to visit convectional medical centres as well as seeking spiritual answers as to why she had her period at such an early age.