At 33, Florence Fred could have been married and possibly leading an independent life with her husband. But she is not. Her parents, could have been reaping fruits of parenthood from her but such dreams seem shattered.
Florence, who hails from Kankhomba Village in Traditional Authority Kanyenda in Nkhotakota has sadly catapulted into a burden to her aging parents. The misery planted on the faces of Florence’s parents, reveals agony they are currently going through.
“Some people are so cruel and God should really punish them,” with tears registering in her eyes, Florence’s mother, Agassa Fred, says.
She was born normal
The mother’s sentiment may sound evil but her expression simply implies that of a broken heart, a wounded soul and an emotionally hurt person. The genesis of the whole predicament is Florence’s condition. She is mentally ill and some men took advantage of that to rape her. She is now a mother of two.
“She was born a normal person in 1983. But three years later, she just collapsed and remained unconscious for a week,” said the mother.
She added that when Florence regained consciousness, the left side of her body developed stroke and she started behaving strangely.
“That was the beginning of her mental problem,” Florence’s father, Joseph Fred, recalled.
Raped as she wandered about
The father said as parents they accepted Florence’s condition and focused on raising her up but things took a bad turn in 2005 when Florence was found pregnant.
“I could not believe it when some women suspected that Florence was pregnant. I disregarded their suspicions but later it turned out to be true. I felt bad inside me,” said the mother.
She said Florence could leave home to wander around Dwangwa Trading Centre during odd hours but the mother never imagined that some people could take advantage by preying on her. Florence delivered a baby girl who was named, Tiyamike; translating into another painful responsibility to the helpless parents.
“As a mentally challenged person, you could not expect her to take care of the child so all the motherly responsibilities were on me,” said the mother.
By the grace of God, she said, the child survived and now she is a standard five pupil. The mother said through advice from friends she put Florence on contraceptives.
“It is always difficult to control her movements as sometimes she sneaks out to the trading centre where she comes late so, some women advised me to seek contraceptives,” said the mother.
She contracts HIV
Since 2005 Florence has been under birth controls but last year the mother said, she relaxed and stayed several months without giving her contraceptive pills. It is the relaxation that the parents are regretting today as during the period, the ‘predators’ did not relax, Florence was raped again. She now has an eight-month old baby; making her a mother of two children whom she cannot properly take care of. As if that is not enough, she tested positive and is on Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.
“Why are people doing this to us? Of all the women out there why could someone sleep with a mentally ill person?” Florence’s father keeps on asking himself this question.
His tone too, is that of a defeated man. Yes he is. Without a steady source of income, he has to ensure that bottled milk is available every week as Florence cannot properly breast feed the baby.
“Florence’s condition alone was a big challenge as she is like a baby too. Now the problem is even too heavy with the coming in of the two children,” said the father.
A burden to ageing parents
The road to old-age seems rough for the parents more especially the mother. She has to endure the suffering that accompanies child rearing. She has to wake up deep in the night to bottle feed the baby. Florence cannot respond to the baby’s cry, neither can she carefully sleep to avoid lying on the baby. Instead, it is the mother who sacrifices her peaceful sleep to take care of the baby at night. The mother said the daunting task of caring for the children especially the baby, is negatively affecting her tomato selling business. The field work too, is not spared.
“I have to be at home to take care of the baby. The father of the house is the one doing much of the field work. I am afraid this may affect our harvest,” she said.
Victims of weak men
A 2014 study published by Psychological Medicine, a leading international journal in the field of psychiatry reports that out of women with severe mental illness surveyed for the study, 40 percent had fallen victim to rape or attempted rape. Florence is just one of them.
“Women with severe mental illness are up to five times more likely than the general population to be victims of sexual assault and two to three times more likely to suffer domestic violence,” reports the journal.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Chiwoza Bandawe said men who prey on mentally disturbed women lack sense of humanity. “Men who do such things are those who prey on the weak and vulnerable. By doing so, they gain a certain amount of power over those who are weaker than them. This indicates that their sense of humanity has been eroded and they struggle to take sense of responsibility,” said Bandawe, adding “this is unfortunate and it is a reflection of the identity and social cultural crisis we have as a nation”.
As they struggle to support Florence and raise her children, the parents have the last words to the unknown fathers of Florence’s children: “those responsible for the children walk in freedom out there. We cannot identify them yes, but they can never run away from the eyes of God.”
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