Gospel musician Mambo Dhuterere, born Darlington Mutseta, has slammed the Johanne Marange Apostolic sect (mapositori) following the death of a 14-year-old girl during childbirth at the church’s shrine in Marange, Manicaland.
In a Facebook post, Dhuterere asserted that marrying off underage girls is rape and not consistent with what the Bible teaches. He wrote:
I don’t know kuti zvekurara ne pwere zvakatopasiswa here pa church doctrine renyu?.. or vangoriwo some individuals vane hunhubu.. zvimwe zvonoshoresa mapostori ese toita setisina kukwana… inini personal am so against that, Plus zvekuti mwana anozvarwa atova ne murume kare kana kumanikidza mwana kuenda pachipari zvakaora izvozvo.
Ko bible moverenga wani?.. vanhu tese taingoita zvekunzwa but nyaya yemwana uyu yaita tizive kuti ndezveshuwa.. Am raising against that. Whatever you call it kwatiri i RAPE.
Is it that having s_xual relations with minors is a doctrine approved by the church’s leadership?
Or could it be wayward behaviour by some unruly elements [within the church?] Such kind of behaviour brings shame on apostolic churches… I’m personally against the practice.
We cannot have a situation whereby a girl is given over to a husband even before she is born, and forcibly giving away girls in marriage to polygamous men is totally unacceptable.
You claim to read the Bible… we heard the issue of the girl (deceased) and this has confirmed what your congregants are doing. … to us, it’s simply rape.
The 14-year-old girl, Memory Machaya, died on 15 July this year, sparking national outrage.
She had been forced out of school and married off to Evans Momberume, a polygamous man.
She was denied medical care and died at the shrine in the hands of five “midwives”. She left her newly born child.