By Dorrothy Moyo | A forty-five-year-old man from Kadoma is expected to appear in court today for allegedly raping his seven-year-old biological daughter.
The man (name withheld) stands accused of infecting the child with HIV.
The matter came to light when the mother examined the child after noticing unusual behaviour.
She reported the matter to the police before being referred to Kadoma General Hospital for medical examination where it was certified that the child had been sexually abused.
The father was arrested last week after the victim disclosed to the nurses about the disgusting acts.
He was, however, last week Wednesday released on bail to today.
During bail ruling, the man through his lawyer denied the allegations saying his wife had fabricated the story as they were having marital problems.
The woman and the child have been staying at a safe house since his release.
_______________________
The act of a man sleeping with his biological daughter is illegal and considered incest in many jurisdictions. This prohibition is grounded in law for several primary reasons:
1. **Protection of family integrity and morality:** The law traditionally recognizes certain familial relationships as sacrosanct and aims to prevent the exploitation of power dynamics within these relationships. Incest laws, thus, preserve the integrity of the family unit, safeguarding familial roles from being conflated with sexual ones.
2. **Prevention of genetic issues:** From a biological standpoint, the prohibition of sexual relations between close relatives is also in place to prevent potential congenital disabilities that are more likely to arise from the offspring of such unions due to the increased risk of recessive genetic disorders being paired.
3. **Consent issues and prevention of abuse:** There is an inherent power imbalance in parent-child relationships, making it nearly impossible for voluntary, informed consent to be given free of undue influence, manipulation, or coercion. The law recognizes this dynamic and seeks to protect potentially vulnerable individuals from sexual exploitation and abuse.
Incestuous relationships, such as a father-daughter relationship, are thus criminalized to protect individuals, familial structures, and society’s health and moral standards. These legal provisions are manifest in statutes specifying the prohibited degrees of kinship, often backed by severe legal sanctions to deter such conduct.
_______________________