Marcia Gore Features Writer
THE story of a Thai woman who allegedly butchered, cooked and ate her two sons aged one and five recently, after mistaking them for piglets made very sad reading. Although it later emerged that the woman had received treatment for mental problems in 2007 after suffering from

hallucinations, one cannot help but wonder why most murderers or their lawyers usually play the mental problem card and get away with it.
Murder, cannibalism, rape, child abuse and other related crimes have been committed even from the biblical first family when Adam’s son Cain killed his brother Abel.

As a people, we have accepted mental instability as justification against moral blameworthiness because judges and magistrates the world over, seem to be concentrating on giving stiffer penalties to cattle rustlers and carjackers than murderers and rapists.
Recently, Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, who was found guilty of murder after killing 77 people, was sentenced to 21 years in jail.
Breivik, who was found sane, said he wanted to apologise but not to his victims. “I want to apologise to all militant nationalists that I wasn’t able to execute more,” he said.

Breivik killed eight people in a van bomb, before going on a shooting frenzy which killed 69 people mostly teenagers at an island summer camp near Oslo, was sentenced to 21 years with a minimum of 10 years.
One would safely see pointers that less respect is placed on human life than on livestock.

What pains more in most of these cases is that cattle rustling and livestock theft is just like the theft of any other goods and should be treated as such unlike rape, murder or child abuse which is a direct attack on human life.
Cattle rustlers and carjackers get stiffer penalties for stealing a car which was probably going to be involved in an accident the next day, months or weeks to come and later replaced by insurance.

Even livestock is insured and can be replaced unlike murdering a breadwinner who can never be replaced, or the rape of a child whose self-esteem is affected for the rest of his or her life and in some cases infected with the HIV virus.

People buy cattle for the purposes of meat or wealth, nobody will ever claim that they keep cattle in their pen forever. They are kept for disposal and some point so why give these priority instead of human life, or virginity that can never be replaced.
We insure cars so that in the event of theft or accidents we get the very same model, which performs the very same function, that its predecessor performed.

Therefore cars can never be more important than a child, or a breadwinner whose family’s lives will never be the same.  
According to crime and courts stories published and broadcast, cattle rustlers are in most cases sentenced to not less than six years in jail while rapists and child abusers get five years, some months in jail or even community service.

In June 2011, Fabion Nyamayedenga of Murehwa was sentenced to 99 years in jail for 21 counts of cattle rustling.
After pleading guilty to 22 counts of cattle rustling and being acquitted of one of the counts, he was later sentenced nine years on each count resulting in him being sentenced to 189 years in prison, 90 of which were suspended resulting in him being sentenced to 99 years.

A 53-year-old Chivi man whose identity was withheld to protect his victim was sentenced to four months in jail for shoving a burning log into his four-year-old niece’s privates after accusing her of eating stew that had been reserved for him.
The people who lost their cattle to Nyamayedenga can replace them even the meat will still be the same but the Masvingo girl’s life will never be the same.

Her jewels can never be the same again and she might suffer future complications due to this incident but the offender got four months in prison and probably when released, he might commit a similar offence in the future.
Another man, Albert Flame Badza, was in March 2001, found guilty of fatally shooting a customer for singing on top of his voice and was sentenced to two years in jail.

In November 2001, John Phiri of Gweru, who was convicted of stealing and slaughtering his employer’s calf before exchanging the meat with a mountain bike was sentenced to nine years in jail.

Whatever circumstances one may present in court, any crime that affect lives directly should be taken seriously so that such incidents will not recur in future. Some journalists even write that so and so was slapped with two months in jail for rape. Those of us who have had the “privilege” of being slapped at some point in their lives will tell you that it is painful and they would give anything not to be slapped again.
Botman Balafuta of Glen Norah was in September 2009 sentenced to five years in prison for murdering his wife while Chamunorwa Mandizvidza and Richard

Makuvaza of Chivhu were both sentenced to 27 years  in jail for stealing three beasts.
Some people have even murdered friends and relatives in cold blood and still got lesser sentences.

Irene Chikuya of Mount Darwin was in February 2010 sentenced to five years in prison for fatally axing her sister Violet after she accused her snatching her husband.

Two brothers — Wilson and Abel Chako of Ngezi — were in 2006 found guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to five years each for killing their 17-year-old relative.

Jeffrey Karasa of Chegutu, who was convicted of stealing six cattle from his employer, was sentenced to 50 years in jail, 25 of which were suspended leaving him with a quarter of a century behind bars.

Worldwide, activists have in recent times campaigned against the Islamic Sharia law, a civil law based on the Qur’an, which stipulates that among other punishments, if you steal your hands should be chopped off, or if you murder someone you will be killed also.

And to a certain extent, it is fair because it ensures that the offender does not repeat the offence. Can such punishments be implemented in rape cases?
Some say there is a difference between the law and justice.

• manacle2010@gmail.com