Zimbabwean police hold female rape suspects

Zimbabwean police may have found the missing link to a social anomaly that had instilled fear in many men as a group of women had opted to defy all the odds, raping men and collecting their semen, after three women were arrested early this week.

Scores of people on Tuesday besieged Gweru Central Police Station demanding to beat up the three women suspected of sexually abusing men. Police also said many complainants had visited the police station, but could not divulge the numbers.

The three youthful suspects - all aged 24 - were arrested last Sunday after their vehicle was involved in an accident along Lower Gweru Road.

Police say they recovered 31 used condoms - four of them with semen - from the vehicle, a Chevrolet, that was being driven by a boyfriend of one of the suspects. The three women, whose identities are being withheld as investigations continue and the driver, were arrested.

Gweru residents besieged the police station demanding to see the suspects.
They vowed not to leave until they had seen the suspects.

Mr Harry Mohammed Misi said the suspects were popular at nightclubs in the town.
"We are shocked with what is happening in our society where men are now being sexually-abused by women. It seems now that tables have turned," he said.
Mr Misi said the women led flashy lives and almost everyone in the city knew them.

"But how can they make a living through such acts? On this case, let the law take its course. "We used to drink with them at Uptown Nite Club and we didn't know that they were behind such cases," he said.

According to Mr Misi, the women had a fleet of cars including the Chevrolet which was involved in the accident giving them away, a Toyota Mark II and a Toyota Chaser among others. Mr Nkululeko Ndlovu said: "People should be given a chance to see these people and talk to them since we want to know what they were doing with the semen."

He said he believed that many men were sexually-abused, but did not report the cases.
Mrs Mary Mangoma expressed disgust that the women made a living through such acts.

"All along I was thinking that they had made it in life yet they were making money through such cases. "They would change their hairstyles in less than three days and I admired them but now I have realised that it was not clean money," she said.

Midlands provincial police spo-kesperson Inspector Patrick Chademana said they were still investigating the case.
"They are still in police custody assisting with investigations and once they (investigations) are complete they will appear in court soon," he said.

Inspector Chademana said several complainants had visited the police station.