15-year-old asked to pay compensation for impregnating girl

20/04/2015

Senior Presiding Magistrate Lazarous Mwape was last week at pains to preside over a case in which a 15–year-old boy was sued for compensation for impregnating a 14-year-old girl.
Alice Zakeyo 32, of Libuko village sued Kamawo Mpatishya of the same village.
Zakeyo was demanding for compensation from the boy claiming her daughter’s future has become bleak.
“My daughter is now out of school, she is pregnant, her future is bleak,” Zakeyo said.
She said when her daughter told her that she was pregnant, she decided to approach the boy’s family who did not deny saying the boy was a grown up man.
When the boy heard that Zakeyo had gone to his home, he went to Zakeyo’s home and started insulting her. The insults prompted Zakeyo to take the matter to court.
But the boy denied impregnating Zakeyo’s daughter claiming that the time the girl was claiming that they had sex he had just undergone Male Circumcision.
He said he underwent circumcision in December and was told to stay away from sex for six weeks.
The boy said he has never been in a relationship with the girl whom she only knew as a loose girl in the neighbourhood.
But the girl insisted that she has had sex with him several times.
“We used to meet at his friend’s house. I cannot even remember the times we had sex but when I told him in January that I did not have my periods, he asked me to wait for February and never to tell anyone,” she said.
She said after two weeks she met the boy who told her that the relationship was over claiming he had heard many stories about her.
She said that was when she told her mother who was so upset and decided to sue the boy.
Passing judgement, magistrate Mwape said it is difficult for a local court to preside over defilement cases.
“This is purely a juvenile case, two teenagers involved in sex. It is difficult for me to preside on such a case, this case was supposed to be reported to police because both involved the girl and boy are underage,” he said.
Magistrate Mwape, however, scolded the boy for telling the court that he had wounds due to circumcision without producing evidence.
The magistrate ordered the boy to pay a compensation of K8,000 with the first instalment of K1,000.
But he said he could not manage such an amount because he was a grade nine pupil.