Zimbabwe battles sham marriages
For Zimbabwean civil servant Tatenda Chigovero, March 30 was supposed to be the most memorable day of his life. But it turned out to be one of the worst.
Mr Chigovero was due to tie the knot, but the Zimbabwe Registrar-General’s Office failed to provide new marriage certificates, meaning couples could not officialise their marriages on that day.
“We took this wedding seriously and have spent months preparing for this occasion only to be told that there are some changes and we will not be married until the problems are sorted out,” Mr Chigovero, who lives in the satellite town of Chitungwiza, 20 kilometres from the capital Harare, said.
The Zimbabwe government a fortnight ago introduced new marriage certificates to curb what it described as “sham marriages” between locals and foreigners.
matrimonial verification
Weddings were immediately suspended to allow for the transition.
New marriage certificates have been designed, but failure by the registry to provide these on time meant that scores of people across the country failed to solemnise their relationships in the past two weeks.
Convenience
Many see this law as targeted at West Africans, particularly Nigerians, who for long have been accused of getting married to locals to facilitate their ease of receiving resident permits.
As if to illustrate how stringent the laws have become, a Zimbabwean legislator had a torrid time when she tried to officialise her relationship with her Cameroonian lover, with a magistrate saying their marriage was suspicious.
The magistrate demanded that Ms Evely Masaiti’s fiancée, Mr Pentecote Ayina, who is 10 years her junior, must produce a “certificate of no marriage” from her country to prove that the two were not entering into a marriage of convenience.
This is a new requirement under tough new measures to curb the sham marriages used by foreigners to acquire Zimbabwean citizenship.
The Zimbabwean authorities accuse the foreigners mostly from Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo of entering into marriages of convenience to secure Zimbabwean citizenship or residence permits.
Last month a Nigerian businessman based in Harare was charged for marrying two Zimbabwean women using different names.
He reportedly married one of the women without her knowledge.
Anayo Chukwu Olisa (41) is being charged with bigamy, supplying false information when applying for a driver’s license, and perjury.
The authorities say such cases are widespread and mostly involve foreigners seeking to set up businesses in Zimbabwe who target desperate women.
Forgery
In another case that was publicised last year, a Harare woman was paid $10 a month for agreeing to a marriage of convenience with a Nigerian man who wanted to secure a resident permit.
In an affidavit produced during their court case, Ms Erina Matindike, a Harare based vendor, said she had married Mr Silvester Nwaozuzu out of desperation.
“I needed money so I agreed to sign the marriage certificate,” she said.
Ms Matindike said Mr Nwaozuzu used to buy her groceries and give her transport money to visit her relatives in the rural areas during the Christmas holidays.
Another Nigerian man put a local woman on $80 monthly salary for entering into a marriage of convenience but was arrested and deported.
Unveiling the certificates a fortnight ago, Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede said the new document had security features that made counterfeiting impossible.
“We are fighting this nuisance of marriages of convenience,” he said.
“Marriage officers will have to comply with this and if you don’t, the jail is waiting for you.
“We are the first in the world to fight marriages of convenience. This is a securitised document that can never be forged.
“We have gone biometric and if you pastors don’t comply with the law, you will face the consequences.”
He accused some marriage officers especially pastors of conducting the illicit unions for monetary rewards.
“Magistrates have also been found wanting on marriages of convenience but the biggest problem comes from reverends who have sworn to serve God in truth but do these things,” Mr Mudede said.
“Why do you do such things, reverends? We know money is the source of all evil because we have reverends who connive with some women to marry them to their husbands.
“Some pastors are taken to hospital to wed husbands who are on their death beds so that the women can claim all the inheritance when he finally dies. It is devilish, why is it coming from the men of the cloth?” he queried.
Monetary reasons
While the move to curb the sham marriages has been welcomed by some Zimbabweans, others especially those who had their special occasions disrupted were left counting their costs.
Ms Masaiti who has now married her younger lover is bitter at the first refusal and believes the magistrate jumped into a wrong conclusion.
“They should have asked me what my spouse is doing in life, not to think that he is coming here because he would want to have a marriage of convenience,” she told the Voice of America recently.
“I am now officially married, it was my choice, it was my spouse’s choice and it was out of love.”
Mr Ayina also dismissed accusations that he was marrying the Zimbabwean legislator for monetary reasons.
“It is out of love (the marriage) and when I even compare my country with Zimbabwe, really my country is a very rich country ….so I don’t even know what type of business I can do here,” he said.
“Now that I have a Zimbabwean wife, I must make sure that everything that Zimbabwe does not have I bring it here for my wife to be happy and comfortable.
“Here in Zimbabwe you don’t have plantains, you don’t have cocoa and yams. Even the cooking style is very poor.”
Although government had reportedly sent marriage certificates to all provinces there are fears they won’t be enough because the courts were given few marriage registers.
The new certificates have space for full names and national identity numbers for witnesses and marriage officer’s date stamp.
There is also space for the right thumb prints of the bride and for the groom but court officials said this might prove to be another complication as magistrates do not have facilities for such exercises.
Source : africareview