When self-styled prophets are allowed to abuse women and get away with it is a sign that our moral fabric as a nation is in tatters.
PHD Ministries founder, Walter Magaya has had several sexual abuse and harassment allegations mounting against him but the authorities seem to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye towards these serious allegations. What is more surprising is that the victims after making the allegations make suspicious U-turns to exonerate the self-styled prophet of any wrongdoing.
Magaya could be using money to silence the victims hence sweeping the cases of women abuse under the carpet.
One of Magaya’s alleged victims, Charity Dlodlo was invited for a one-on-one interview with Nyaradzo Mashayamombe on Identities Conversations and she publicly claimed that Magaya had abused her. Dlodlo then shocked all and sundry when she back pedalled, going as far as profusely apologizing to the prophet claiming that she had been used by the devil to make the allegations.
What she does not do was to explicitly say whether she had lied about the sexual allegations about the ‘prophet’ or that she was used by the devil to speak the truth out. This is a question only authorities mandated to eliminate gender based violence and sexual exploitation of women and children can answer. It is for the police to investigate this fancies them.
She becomes the fourth Magaya “sex victim” to turn around on her confession after two other women, Petronelle, Sarah Maruta and Chenai Maenzanise, also turned around and withdrew their earlier statements of rape and sexual abuse leaving the nation suspicious of something sinister at play forcing the women to disown their own statements.
Dlodlo went as far as recording a video asking for forgiveness from the self-styled clergyman claiming that evil spirits were behind her behaviour and apologised.
“I wish to apologise to the man of God, Prophet Magaya. It was the work of the devil in my life. From now on, I will not be fighting him. I realise it is no use fighting a man of God who was sent to help others. To the man of God Prophet Magaya, please forgive me for all that I have been doing via social media. Please find it in your heart to forgive me,” she pleaded.
One might be tempted to ask what could be the reason why Dhlodlo quickly withdrew the abuse allegations against the man of God hardly 72 hours of her interview on Identities Conversations. Could she have been silenced either through money or threats?
During the interview, Dlodlo had openly said that at one time she had received death threats for continuously making noise about the abuse allegations against Magaya.
“At one time, there was a man whom I don’t even know who was sent to my house by the prophet and said that if I kept on making noise they would silence me and they also sent me death threats messages over the phone,” said Dlodlo.
This is despite the fact that hardly days back, an angry and bold Dlodlo had, in detail, narrated how Magaya lured her to his Prospect offices where she knelt before him and how he had indecently assaulted her.
“Magaya rose from his chair, kissed and touched my breasts and I screamed loudly,” she said in her testimony on Identities Conversations that was watched by millions across the country and the globe.
The swimming actress and swimming coach even claimed that following the incident, Magaya pampered her financially as a way to keep her quiet. She said then that she had decided to come clean and reveal the truth about Magaya. She also confessed that she knew about Maruta’s alleged rape by Magaya, saying given her faith in the man of God, she had however, refused to believe he could be a sexual pervert.
A week ago, Dlodlo and Maruta went to a local newspaper where they poured out their hearts about their alleged sexual harassment by Magaya. A few days later however, Maruta turned around and accused Dlodlo and the newspaper’s editorial team of coercing her into nailing Magaya.
This was Maruta who decided to pour cold water on the already blazing fire and told the masses that Magay had never abused her and she had much faith in the man of God.
She became the third alleged victim to do so after another alleged victim Maenzanise’s daughter denied audio reports by her parents that she was raped and impregnated by Magaya when she was only 17 years old. She went on nullifying her parents’s rape statements in a video, which she posted on Facebook saying she was never raped by Magaya and that her intention was to get married.
What she did not dispute was the existence of an inappropriate relationship between her and Magaya, as well as whether there was a child between the two of them.
Following this development, social media commentators took to various platforms like Facebook, Instagram and even Twitter, attacking Dlodlo and other two ladies for acting in an irresponsible manner by pouring cold water on a case that could have been a solid one for the courts. The case could have been the end of women abuse in Magaya’s ministry but she chose to be silenced by whatever she was given.
Meanwhile, many accused her of having been offered money because there are a lot of rumours that the clergyman always does that to his victims so as to evade the long hand of the law while some said she had been threatened. Others said as an actress, she had been fooling everyone and was just out to get money from Magaya or it was a publicity stunt for whatever she wanted to pursue.
A few days ago the police released a statement bemoaning the withdrawal of the cases against Magaya saying that it incapacitates them from investigating Magaya.
What remains clear however, is the fact that the Zimbabwean government has a mandate to protect women and girls from sex predators. The police of Zimbabwe has capacity with or without women coming forward, to investigate these cases and nub the perpetrator who is alleged to use church funds in paying off women to keep quiet.
The practice of using women for sex in ‘churches is known in primitive age as ‘sex cults’ a behaviour synonymous with evil worship and cultism. In Zimbabwe such a case was unearthed and Gumbura has since been sentenced to 40 years in prison for raping girls and women among other crimes of sexual nature.
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