Binti 'aliyembaka' mtoto afungwa miaka 15 jela

A MAID has been jailed for 15 years after admitting sexually molesting a seven-year-old boy.

The victim was twice treated for herpes, the Bulawayo Magistrates’ Court heard, but a charge of deliberately infecting another person with a sexually transmitted disease was unproven against the maid.

Sikhululiwe Ngwenya, now 19, admitted sexual abuse of the boy who had been left in her care in Lupane between April and December 2009.

In May of the same year, the court heard, the boy developed sores on his penis and received hospital treatment.

The sores reappeared again in December and the boy’s grandmother took him to Lupane Hospital where nurses quized him leading to the discovery of the abuse.

Ngwenya was arrested in January last year.

She faced an aggravated indecent assault charge and a second rap for deliberately infecting another person with a sexually transmitted disease.

After admitting the first charge before Bulawayo magistrate Fadzai Mthombeni on Monday, Ngwenya pleaded not guilty to deliberately passing on a sexually transmitted disease.

Prosecutor Mazhar Pektar withdrew the charge after accepting that the state could not prove that she knew she had herpes before the sexual attack on the boy.

Mthombeni sentenced her to 18 years in jail before conditionally suspending three years.