10/07/2026
Man needs protection also
Masvingo man begs court to jail wife after hot oil attack
MASVINGO – A 27-year-old Masvingo man has pleaded with the court to send his wife to prison, telling the magistrate that he no longer feels safe living with her after she allegedly poured hot cooking oil on his face, left hand and back during a dispute over money.
“I am no longer comfortable staying with this wife. What if she kills me? She should go to jail for three months,” he said.
The plea came during proceedings at the Masvingo Magistrates’ Court on July 10, 2026, where the man’s 21-year-old wife appeared facing an attempted murder charge.
The accused appeared before Magistrate Archie Wochiungwa, with Precious Takuva prosecuting. She pleaded guilty and was remanded in custody to July 13 for sentencing.
The court heard that the incident occurred on July 8, 2026, at around 8pm while the couple was at their home. The complainant reportedly gave his wife US$130 and told her that he had used US$5. This allegedly sparked an argument after the accused questioned why he had spent the money instead of giving it to her.
The woman allegedly poured hot cooking oil onto the complainant’s face, left hand and back. As he tried to flee, she allegedly bit him on the left hand before leaving the house.
The accused admitted committing the offence but told the court that she had reacted after being assaulted by her husband.
“We argued over the money. When I asked my husband for the money to buy diapers and he gave it to me, I went to buy them, but when I returned home he started assaulting me, beating me and saying, why can’t I give him the money he worked for.
She told the court she grabbed the hot cooking oil after finding an opportunity to escape from the assault.
“He beat me, but when I found an opportunity to escape, I went straight to the kitchen and took the hot cooking oil which he had put on the stove and poured it on him. I wasn’t aware that he might die,” she said.
The accused pleaded for leniency, saying she has a seven-month-old child who still needs her care.
“I ask the court to forgive me. I have a seven-month-old child who still needs a mother’s love, and growing up with separate parents might not be good for the child. I also need to talk to my husband because he might forgive me.
“I know he loves me, but it is his parents who are pushing him,” she said.
This case is one of the few genderbased violence cases, especially against men, that are ever reported. When it comes to genderbased violence and domestic violence, women are usually the victims.
Walk into any magistrates’ court in Zimbabwe on any given day, and the majority of complainants will be women. The statistics confirm that one in three Zimbabwean women experiences some form of violence in their lifetime, and courts handled nearly 4,000 raperelated cases in 2025 alone.
Yet beneath this welldocumented crisis lies a quieter, less acknowledged reality: men are also suffering.
For decades, Zimbabwe’s genderbased violence narrative has centered almost exclusively on women and girls, a focus shaped by the country’s deeply ingrained patriarchal history. But beneath that truth lies another reality, rarely acknowledged: men who endure physical, emotional, or psychological violence, overwhelmingly suffering in silence.
Police statistics show that during a recent tenmonth period, men filed 2,463 genderbased violence complaints compared with 16,444 reports from women. Experts believe the actual number of male victims far exceeds documented cases.
Last year alone, the Musasa Project attended to 241 male GBV survivors. The Zimbabwe Republic Police has also acknowledged that men can be victims of verbal, emotional, physical or sexual abuse, and has urged them to break the silence.
Yet many still hesitate to speak out, fearing ridicule, disbelief, or being labelled weak. This silence, experts warn, is contributing to rising su***de cases among men. The cultural expectation that men must be strong and unemotional has become a psychological trap, leaving many to endure abuse in silence until it is too late.
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