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MANZINI – “I was told that my body does not belong to me.”

According to the Zionist prophet’s spouse *Nomathemba, her husband and church bishop allegedly told her that by virtue of being a wife to a prophet, she did not have the right to her own body. She said upon begging the church elder and her husband to keep their unborn baby, they were allegedly against it.

“He (bishop) said my husband had the right to speak and mine was to obey because my body does not belong to me,” she claimed in court. The wife further divulged that the church elder said she should trust her husband to do something once the pregnancy was terminated. She further claimed that the bishop asked if she had any regard for the congregation, as she led services for women in church on Thursdays.

“He said this would mean the women in church would have to stop attending services because I would keep the baby,” she said.

The wife went on to say the elder told her that a lot of things would be stopped and she would not be able to perform her role as a wife at home, due to that she would have to constantly make hospital visits.

The wife was allegedly forced to agree to terminate her unborn child.

She confessed that after their trip to the church elder, her husband went for days without talking to her. She said when they went to her double storey home in Ngwane Park, the husband went upstairs to sleep without uttering a word.

“I made him food and sent it to him. He ate and still did not say anything to me. Days went by without him saying anything to me. One night, I woke up consumed by my husband’s silence. I woke him up and told him that I would do things his way,” she said.

Consultation

Even then, the wife said that her husband remained silent until one day when he came back from his consultation station in Matsapha and engaged her.

“He finally told me he heard my statement and would not even bother to ask if what I had said came from my heart. He said we should start on a clean slate and said I should trust everything that he tells me as my husband,” she claimed. The wife relayed that he expressed that by marrying him, he thought she would trust and obey everything he said.

“My husband also said he had thought that he owned my body and I would do anything he instructed me to do. He said we would go ahead with the abortion on Monday,” she alleged in court.

However, she said this did not sit well with her because she did not wish to terminate the pregnancy.

“I was only doing it because my husband had taken me to church elders and he wanted me to go ahead with the termination,” she further alleged. The wife mentioned that she went to the women in church and told them that she tried talking to her husband but he changed his mind about keeping the baby.

She disclosed that what hurt her the most the day he sent her to the elder was that they said even if the child was to be born and lived, they would not accept and bless it when it was introduced to the church. They said her husband was too old to have a child introduced, according to the wife.

The wife said her husband blatantly told her that the child was not blessed such that he would not even be given a name.