Picture: iStock
A group called Save Our Girls has launched a case in the Johannesburg High Court in response to tweets by Zimbabwean journalist Rutendo Matinyarare encouraging sex with under-age girls.
Save Our Girls said it is seeking to end what it says are weak legal protections for young girls that effectively legalise paedophilia.
The group says the Sexual Offences and Related Matters Amendment Act defines a child as under the age of 18, but that age threshold drops to 12-16 when it comes to sexual offences.
This “legalises paedophilia, is not in the best interests of the child, and is thereby unconstitutional and unlawful,” says the Notice of Motion.
Save Our Girls wants the law amended to protect children from this. Cited as respondents in the case are Zimbabwean journalist Rutendo Matinyarare, Zimbabwean billionaire Kuda Tagwirei and the SA ministers of home affairs, basic education and women and youth.
ALSO READ: Why women in SA remain easy targets
Sandra Chinyanya, deposing for Save Our Girls, said paedophilia has an unfortunate history in African culture, with some African men believing that sex with young girls cures diseases, promotes longevity and makes their businesses profitable.
She cites a social media posting on X by Matinyarare, who has more than 53 000 followers, saying: “When you date 16-year-olds you get the bonus of also smashing their mums when you are feeling like mature wine.”
Matinyarare followed this with another tweet: “Tender and impressionable. Still having dreams before being abused by bad boys.”
When a South African woman by the name of Pumzile responded: “I am the mother of a 10-year-old girl. She clearly isn’t safe with the likes of you around”, Matinyarare replied: “When she gets to 16 let me know.”
In April 2024, Matinyarare justified these comments: “Young women who are sexually emancipated to have sex have a right to choose who they sleep with, without anyone trying to police their bodies and their choices. Who are you to dictate who young women can sleep with?”
These are chilling words, especially to the parents of 16-year-old girls, says Chinyanya in her founding affidavit.
In June 2024, The Herald newspaper in Zimbabwe reported that 680 minors in that country had been impregnated by men who share these views about young girls. The court papers detail several international studies showing the harm inflicted by having sexual intercourse at an early age, including pregnancy among the young when their physical development is not yet complete.
Though the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act defines a child as under 18, it makes an exception that legalises sexual penetration and sexual violation of penetration. This weakness in the law has allowed some men to get away with having sex with children.
“The law does not encourage paedophiles to have sex with children,” said Chinyanya.
ALSO READ: South African paedophile on run traced to UK
Tagwirei is cited as a respondent because he is claimed to fund Matinyarare’s media activities.
Tagwirei was sanctioned by the US government in 2020 as a “notoriously corrupt Zimbabwean businessman for materially assisting senior Zimbabwean government officials involved in public corruption”.
The US department of state issued the sanctions order against Tagwirei for his long-standing ties to ruling party Zanu-PF and using his relationships to gain state contracts and receive favoured access to hard currency.
This is not Matinyarare’s first brush with controversy. In July 2024, he was convicted of contempt of court in Johannesburg for defamatory statements about the food produced by Zimbabwe’s largest food producer, Innscor.
He got a three-month jail sentence, suspended on condition that he does not make any further defamatory statements.
This was after social media posts by Matinyarare accusing Innscor of selling food containing genetically modified organisms and labelling the company’s founder Zinona Koudounaris a “Rhodie” – meaning a white Rhodesian.
The court instructed Matinyarare to take down the posts. He did not which resulted in a contempt of court order.
A lawyer who represented Matinyarare in his defamation case later filed a criminal complaint against him, saying he had lied to the court by claiming he was unaware of the judgment against him (in the defamation case).
The lawyer said Matinyarare fled South Africa when the contempt of court order was issued against him.
ALSO READ: Zanu-PF regime is putting its best Gucci-shod foot forward
Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.
