Women Stage Demo Over Court Lenience On Rape CasesMore than two dozen women Wednesday held a demonstration against the granting of bail to suspected rapists by Zimbabwean courts. The women, including Bulawayo metropolitan legislator, Jasmine Koks Toffa, were briefly detained but later released without any charges. They included the mother of a 14-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by a man that was Thursday granted bail of $100. Last year the Ministry of Gender Affairs reported that more than 5,000 minors were raped in 2014. Studio 7 reached Toffa, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change formation led by Welshman Ncube, who said the demonstration was a non-partisan protest which highlighted the light sentences that rapists are getting away with. “We were demonstrating against the bail that is being given to rapists that are raping minors. Our aim is to show that the courts are being lenient to rapists and are not protecting the girl child,” said Toffa. There has been an increase in the call for courts to hand out tougher sentences to convicted or suspected rapists. Toffa said the demonstrators did not belong to any particular party or group but were brought together by their concern over the court’s lenience over rape cases. Asked what they were going to do next she said: “We are going to watch out for the court case and make sure that we support victims of rape, like we did today, we are going to look for the victim.”