"Report marital rape"- Women's Shelter

For seven years, *Gosego Molemi has been in an abusive marriage, which she describes as her worst pain ever. In an interview with The Midweek Sun, Molemi says even though her marriage of 10 years had lost the spark, her husband always forced himself onto her.

It all started one weekend when he told her that he was going on a work trip outside the country and switched off his phones. She says upon returning  home, her husband and father of three children would not want to be drawn into any discussion on why his mobile phones were off.

A part of her told her he was having an affair. And this she says was fuelled by the fact that he always switched his phones on silent mode at home or he would run outside to answer when it rang. “That night, I made a decision not to have sex without a condom,” she says, adding, however that her husband turned the tables on her and told her that he had paid cows to marry her.

“He told me that only prostitutes deserve sex with condoms because they are for every man out there, and that I am his wife. That’s when he forced himself inside of me,” she says. She has since found refuge at the Women’s Shelter in Gaborone.

A lot of times, according to the director of Women’s Shelter, Lorato Moalosi-Sakufiwa, women do not report marital rape. It is only when they come to the Shelter to report their marriage problems that marital rape comes out dominant. Sakufiwa states that it is a serious issue that is often accompanied by other forms of violence.

“When someone abuses you emotionally, physically, or financially, intimacy dies. Unfortunately, other spouses choose to forcefully have sex,” she says. Narrating further experiences from the Shelter, she says there are instances where a husband is cheating, but would refuse to use a condom when the wife insists. There are also cases where the husband is HIV positive but would refuse to use a condom to protect the wife from contacting it.

“The perpetrator is usually the one with too much power in the marriage,” she says calling on women to report marital rape. Pastor Benjamin Moeng of Worship Centre in Gaborone says that even though the Bible counsels spouses to give themselves and their bodies to their better halves, it does not mean it should be done forcefully.

“God honours sex as a beautiful act within marriage, and He would not be glorified where it’s violent or forceful,” he says. In response, Botswana Police Service spokesperson Chris Mbulawa says marital rape is classified as rape and that women should report it.