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Robert Mukondiwa
Imagine this:

He is a familiar face. A man who you have lived and worked with for close to a decade. A person who ought to protect you should the unfortunate possibility of attack face you in a world that emasculates you simply because of your sex.

You call him brother and have the utmost respect for him.

You know the smell of his breath when he helps you lift heavy things. You know the smell of his sweat when he comes to do the heavy work.

You also know that look he often gives you; an unnerving look which has however not led to anything drastic. Until now.

He is holding you pinned to the wall, desperately trying to tear your thighs apart. His eyes have become unfamiliar and his breath, the one that you have smelt before, now has the angry smell of sulphur and burning brimstone.

He is swearing on all the gods, living and dead, that today he will get his own way with you and will rape you if it’s the last thing he will do. There is a beast inside him, an animal threatening to rip through his chest as he heaves angrily, his nails tearing into your flesh and thighs. As you scream out loud you know there is no one who will rescue you. There is no one in sight. Nobody near. As he burns you with an iron to subdue you.

It is nothing a woman would want to imagine. It is the ultimate crime against a woman, a mother, a sister, a wife, a friend.

Yet Benhilda Dandajena did not have to imagine this; she endured it. Lived through the ordeal. Twice in a single day in fact. And it all ended in unfortunate tragedy that she will have to live with for her entire life.

Benhilda is the maid who has been in the press for fighting off what the media has labelled ‘‘sex pest’’ Pfungwa Chimuchengwa. Her work colleague and gardener at the same premise for close to 8 years who one day after almost harmlessly in jest trying to work his way into making love to her, decided she had been resisting his advances for too long and decided to rape her.

In the ensuing defence by the mother of two, Benhilda held a kitchen knife to defend herself. In the ensuing melee, Chimuchengwa got stabbed in a vital organ and died a few metres outside of the house in which they both worked in which he had attempted to rape her.

Having initially been sentenced to an effective year and a half out of a three-year sentence, Benhilda finally tasted freedom when, with the help of Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Associating and Advocate Patti Kachidza, they successfully argued that she was not culpable for Chimuchengwa’s death.

But her freedom is far from guaranteed. It never will be. Because in her young heart, she carries the unenviable burden on having seen someone lose their life in a scuffle with her. Pest as he may have been labelled, he was still a father and a husband.

Benhilda recounted her tale to Saturday Herald Lifestyle. It was a trip to hell and back. And even then, some of her joy has been left in the deep dark crevices of hell and purgatory in a journey that stile many years of her own life and left her scarred.

“I am trying to recover,” she says. “And with the counselling I know I will get from ZWLA I know I will heal,” she says.

Her recount is strong as any woman is. Steady, deliberate and often tense at times.

Yet her heart breaks when the conversation saunters into an intimate part of her soul. A delicate mile that we walk. How her children found out what had happened and how they coped. She is a mother to two boys aged 13 and 10.

“The older one got home to find many people there after the incident,” Benhilda recalls.

“He asked them what had happened and you know how people speak. They said ‘your mother killed someone’ and he immediately ran to the house crying. He came to the entrance and looked at me and asked . . . ” just then she pauses. In the silence you can hear her breaking heart.

And then she succumbs and breaks down crying.

No mother would want that for her child. The stigma of having people who do not understand tell their child that she is a killer. A cold blooded murderer as was implied on the day.

Benhilda has the picture of her son stuck in her mind. Engraved. She cannot erase it. She still feels and smells the scent of pain that came from her son.

As if she had let him down. Evidently a whole family needs counselling. For the children to know that it is their mother who was a victim. And for this family to move on from this nightmare.

Yet Benhilda has her good fortune. While her extended family has altogether stopped communicating with her. She hasn’t faced the same stigma from her immediate family and employer.

She returned from her days in prison to be taken back by her loving employers who knew in their heart of hearts that Benhilda was innocent and have not intentionally or negligently caused the death of their now late gardener.

Add to that her children and especially her husband are her soul’s allies.

“I always used to tell my husband with whom I lived at the same cottage as the gardener and the gardener’s wife that the gardener was making advances at me even though I called him bhudhi (brother). My husband had a word with him but obviously that hadn’t been enough,” she said.

“Every time he made advances I told my husband and even his wife knew of his philandering ways and had found out about his other girlfriend and at five months pregnant had attempted suicide after finding out.

“That is why on the fateful day I had not told her about the first attack in the morning because she was heavily pregnant. I feared she would attempt suicide again and wanted to tell my husband but the unfortunate second rape attempt happened before he got back,” she said.

While his evil lives after him, Pungwa’s brainless deed (pun intended) meant that he left a heavily pregnant wife and young family fatherless and Benhilda’s life in shambles.

“This is not a licence to kill. It is simply a ruling arrived at when all the facts had been gathered that indeed she had not intended to kill the deceased and in fact he ran into a knife she was wielding.

‘‘She had been back to the wall and he ran into it. Women should defend themselves and this landmark case does not say people can go around using deadly force on their attackers,” advised her lawyer Advocate Kachidza.

Her stern and steady hand and close to three decades of experience ensured good representation and steady counselling

Rape is an ugly crime. It leaves debris of shattered lives in its wake and often ends in death and disillusionment.

Benhilda will try and rebuild her life one smile at a time. After all her name means beautiful girl and maybe her heart will reclaim its shattered beauty.

And yet perhaps as we start the 16 Days of activism against gender based violence, her sad tale is one that may educate perpetrators that rape and abuse is never a good idea.

And that while it seems as small as the wind, the repercussions from rape can be reaped as a whirlwind after all is said and done.

“I want to thank my husband for standing with me. I want to change my life,” says Benhilda who now has plans to go back to school and get better grades at her Ordinary Level.

With the help of her family, Advocate Kachidza, counsellors, ZWLA with advocacy from Danai Chirawu, her soul may one day heal.

#EndGenderBasedViolence

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See page four for another story on gender-based violence.