MUTINTA MULAYE writes
THE Lusaka Boma Local Court has granted divorce to a couple who have been married for 10 years but have been on separation for seven years.
Violet Banda, 30, of George Compound took Alfred Tembo, 33, of Makeni to court for a formal divorce.
Banda told senior local court magistrate Freda Mugala she wanted the court to formally divorce them because there was no marriage any more.
“We got married in 2010 and in 2012 he started changing. He started coming home late and having extra marital affairs after I had my second child.
“Whenever I tried to talk to him or to advise him, he would beat me. I decided to go to his family, who only told me to endure saying ‘that is what marriage is’,” Banda said.
She testified that Tembo used to beat her so much that she decided to pack her bags and leave their house.
“He even gave me K300 and told me he didn’t want to find me when he came back home. Sometimes he told me he would kill me and that if I stayed with him I would continue crying,” Banda said.
She said in 2013, their landlord advised her to leave her husband for a while because he (landlord) used to witness the violence.
This was to give time to their two families to intervene.
“I went back to my parents. Two weeks later, I received a call-out from the police saying I had stolen the stuff I had packed before leaving my husband. I initially bought those things on my own. So I was reluctant to take them back. But because the police said I would be locked up, I gave in,” she said.
Banda said her husband’s whole family came to her parents’ house and got all the things and even entered her parents’ bedroom.
She went to court seeking divorce, but the court told her and Tembo to sit down as two families and resolve their differences first,” Banda said.
She said she started school but Tembo was against the idea.
She chose marriage over school but later went to school.
The court found that there was violence and unfaithfulness in the marriage.
It granted Banda divorce and ordered Tembo to pay back the K2,000 on September 9, 2019.
