Correspondent|Human rights lawyer and former MDC legislator for Harare West, Jessie Majome, has expressed her disappointment over fellow lawyer Job Sikhala’s statement demeaning women when he said the woman who was accusing MDC leader Nelson Chamisa of rape was “too ugly to be raped even if one found her naked.”

Sikhala posted the comment about the lady on his Twitter late Sunday evening.

“As a member of Zimbabwe Lawyers For Human Rights (ZLHR), I’m thoroughly disappointed that one touted as a human rights lawyer because of representing suspected shutdown rioters and looters would say this.

“It puts our ZLHR into disrepute -women’s rights are human rights. Dignity and respect please,” said Majome, who was hounded out of the opposition party towards elections last year.

Majome says Sikhala’s sentiments do not help matters at all serve to cast the wider body of lawyers in bad light.

“It also puts even the wider legal profession into disrepute. When we’re registered as legal practitioners we take an oath to uphold the laws of Zimbabwe, so for one to condone rape by men, to normalize that crime as if men habitually and occasionally rape is bad.”

Majome further said that Sikhala could be sued for his sentiments, regardless of the merits or lack thereof of the woman’s alleged police report.

“As a lawyer, he (Sikhala) should know that he is possibly liable for civil suit, whatever the merits or demerits of her alleged report. I read somewhere that there are issues of mental health involved – it gets even worse for him. He’s denigrating all women as fodder for rape.

“If we all just respect every woman’s and man’s dignity we’d avoid this gaffe. Section 51 of our Constitution says: Every person has inherent dignity in their private and public life, and the right to have that dignity respected and protected.

“It is sad that an MP and lawyer has fuelled so much misogyny.”

Sikhala, who is MDC Alliance legislator for Zengeza West, has since deleted his offending tweet but has not apologized.

He also got into eye of a storm after it became apparent he had used a photo of a woman who works at a public hospital in Kadoma as a midwife.

The woman Sikhala wrongly abused is a 49-year old widow and is said to be traumatized by the attacks she got on social media. She shares the same name and surname with the rape accuser, who however has since withdrawn her police report.