WHILE some relatives and friends were mourning at her brother’s funeral, a twenty year old woman was having sex with a man she met for the first time and ended up being pregnant. Monica Musonda of Twapia Township, told the Kabushi Local Court that Bernard Kanyembo, 32, of the same township broke her virginity and impregnated her after the one night stand in 2016. “I knew Kanyembo in 2016 at my brother’s funeral. He proposed love to me at the funeral and took me to his house where we slept together,” she said.

Musonda was testifying in the case of her mother, Beatrice Chileshe, who has sued Kanyembo for damaging her daughter’s virginity and she was seeking compensation of K10, 000. And Chileshe told the court that she discovered that her daughter was three months pregnant in 2017. Musonda ,who was 18 years old then and in Grade Nine was taken to Kanyembo’s family to discuss her pregnancy which Kanyembo accepted responsibility. Chileshe, however, said Kanyembo failed to support the child, the reason she dragged him to court for breaking her daughter’s virginity.

But, Kanyembo told the court that Musonda had first slept with her cousin who forced her into having sex with her. “I knew Musonda in 2017 when we met at the funeral at night and she told me in one of the conversations that her cousin forced her to have sex with him before I slept with her,” he testified. Kanyembo said on the night they met, they were in a group talking and drinking beer and after people left, Musonda asked him where she would sleep and that is when he offered her to sleep at his place.

Musonda, however, told him to pay K50 if he had sex with her to which he agreed. Musonda slept with him and took her back the next day. After four days of meeting with Musonda, Kanyembo found Musonda at his friends place sitting on his bed and that he did not say anything but left the place without saying a word. Kanyembo said after three months when he was at school, Musonda sent a text requesting for K500 to abort her pregnancy, but he took it as a joke.

“I have denied breaking her virginity because she told me that her cousin is the one who did that. She thought by falling pregnant, I will date and marry her, “he said. Kanyembo said he had not been able to provide support to the child because he was being kept by his parents and that he was not in formal employment. Kabushi local court senior magistrates Agness Muswema, Mildred Namwizye and Evelyn Nalwizye ruled that Kanyembo was not responsible for breaking Musonda’s virginity as she was promiscuous. The court found that Musonda slept with Kanyembo whom he did know without using a condom. The court advised Musonda to sue Kanyembo for child maintenance and that he could seek DNA services if he doubted the child’s paternity.