A 20-year-old Zambian man was recently taken to court for allegedly raping his 16-year-old sister. According to him, he never forced his sister to having sex with him. In fact, he told the court they were ‘in love’.
He told the court that it was his mother’s fault that they had grown so close and ended up sleeping together. He said she had suggested that her son share a bed with his sister to free up a room for a visiting relative.
The mother tells a different story: on the first night of sharing the bed, she heard her daughter scream. When she investigated, the family agreed to talk about it in the morning. But when the sun came up, the brother had disappeared only to return days later. On that morning, the mother told him to apologise to his sister and not mention the incident again.
It was only when a villager noticed that the siblings acted oddly when they were together that they tipped off the police. That’s how the brother ended up getting arrested.
Incest or sexual intercourse between persons who are closely related, is a crime in Zambia. The brother in this story says it was consensual. The law says it’s still a criminal offence. What do you think happened in this story?