The Francistown Magistrate Court this week sentenced Stephen Mukwakwa to eight years in prison for defiling a 15-year-old girl.
Thirty-eight-year-old Mukwakwa did not waste the court’s time as he pleaded guilty for sexually violating the junior secondary student and also admitted to being the father of the child conceived from the alleged love affair.
According to evidence brought before court, in 2021, Mukwakwa proposed love to the girl who was schooling at one of the Junior secondary schools in Francistown. The girl was staying with her aunt, who was Mukwakwa’s girlfriend at the time. Suspicious that MukwaKwa was intimately involved with the 15-year-old girl, the aunt is said to have transferred her niece to another school in Francistown and moved her to stay with her grandmother in Selepa.
Despite the distance, Mukwakwa is said to have continued to sexual engage with the underage girl until sometime in April 2023, when the guardians of the girl noticed she was pregnant. In November the same year the girl gave birth to Mukwakwa’s baby.
Sentencing the accused person, Principal Magistrate, Thapelo Buang decried the prevalence of teenage pregnancies, the high number of children who are sexually assaulted and abused by the same people who are meant to protect and guide them.
“The number of cases of girls and boys who are sexually violated, defiled and in need protection of courts has become a concern. Our jurisdiction is grappling which high number of cases of defilement particularly of girls below the age of consent being violated by people they consider guardians and role models. People whom children hold in trust and high esteem, only for them to betray and molest the innocent minors”, indicated Buang.
“In this instant case, the accused person exhibited not only careless but recklessly behavior. Endangering the life of young, blooming and promising girl. The accused person was already involved in a love relationship with the victim’s aunt, and one wonders what more he wanted from a minor who is in the custody of his girlfriend.”
Buang said,” as courts we cannot allow such dangerous and heinous men such as the accused to go unpunished. It is also imperative to send warning bells to other men out there in society who may be thinking of engaging in sexual relationships with underage girls not to dare. And those who are preying on school going girls, below the age of consent to end such shameful relations.”
Principal Magistrate Buang concluded that Mukwakwa did not only sexual abuse the minor but also jeopardized her future and health.
