By STANSLOUS NGOSA –

FOR some unknown reason, Zambia is seeing a bizarre increase in reported cases of bestiality cases.
A 22-year-old man of Chisamba district in Central Province was a fortnight ago arrested and taken to court for allegedly having sex with a goat.
Charles Siyamba was found having canal knowledge with the goat in the Mumbalane forest in the same area.
His relatives found Charles in the act and reported him to the police.
Police confirmed this development.
In Kasama, a 20-year-old man of Chiswaswa village in Chief Nkole Mfumu shocked his neighbourhood after he was caught committing beastiality with a chicken which later died.
Frazier Kasonde is alleged to have broken into a chicken run at night and committed the act with the chicken.
He was found pants down by the owner of the chicken identified as Penias Mutale, of the same village.
Mr Mutale told police that he found Kasonde in the act with the hen which had chicks and that the culprit admitted to having committed beastiality.
Three men of Liombe Village in Senior Chief Chipepo’s area in Kapiri Mposhi district were also reported to have carnal knowledge of a chicken.
The three identified men, aged 35, 66 and 80 years, are believed to have taken turns in having carnal knowledge of the hen which also later died.
Liombe Village Senior Headwoman, Loveness Chimbuleni, who confirmed the incident, said the trio was discovered with the dead chicken in a room where they are alleged to have had canal knowledge of it.
The dead chicken was discovered with its canal cavity widely ruptured with suspected male semen oozing out of it.
The traditional leader said cases of people having sex against the order of nature were rampant in Chief Chipepo’s area.
Headwoman Chimbuleni attributed the increase in the number of cases of beastiality to widespread witchcraft.
In Chisamba a 27 man who had sex with a chicken was recently sentenced to 15 years imprisonment with hard labour by a Kabwe High Court.
Kabwe High Court judge-in-charge, Mwiinde Siavwapa sentenced Goliath Nyirenda, a general worker to 15 years imprisonment for having carnal knowledge of a chicken.
In Sentencing Nyirenda, Mr Justice Siavwapa said it was inhuman to have sex with a chicken and that the act was bordering on abnormality.
Beastiality, according to Yahoo Dictionary, is humans having sex with animals.
It can also mean simply the state or condition of animals in general, excluding humans, apparently lacking human reason or intelligence.
According to a special NPSOAA Review Focus; Beastiality in the 21st Century, sexual contact with an animal may be pursued as a convenient substitute for heterosexual relations when the animal is more readily accessible than a human partner.
However, in Zambia, it is believed that the women population is more than that of men.
But the incidences of beastiality may also be the result of curiosity or a desire for novelty.
As such, beastiality is not necessarily a paraphilia.
A paraphilia is a condition involving sex fettishes where a person’s sexual arousal and gratification depend on fantasising about, and engaging in, sexual behaviour that is atypical and extreme.
A paraphilia can revolve around a particular sex fetish like an object for example children, animals, underwear or around a particular sex fetish act which includes inflicting pain, exposing oneself.
Most of the paraphilias are far more common in men than in women. The focus of a paraphilia is usually very specific and unchanging.
For example, for someone who derives sexual pleasure from exposing his genitals, watching others engaging in sexual activity will not generally provide sexual gratification.
It becomes a paraphilia, known as zoophilia, only if it develops into the preferred means of sexual arousal.
A zoophile is someone who is emotionally, and often sexually, attracted to a non-human animal.
Some zoophiles go all the way and have sexual intercourse with an animal they are emotionally attached to, while others keep the human/non-human relationship to a mutual, non sexual one.
For most of such individuals, sexual contact with an animal do not happen more than once or twice or a few times in a lifetime.
For the males, the most common animal is a sheep, calf, and goat and the activity included vaginal intercourse.
For females, it usually involves a dog and sometimes a cat and limited to having the animal perform cunnilingus (Cunnilingus is an oral sex act performed by a person on a female’s genitalia) or to the female masturbating a male animal.
However, bestiality is believed to be far more common among boys raised on farms, where it is prompted by observations of the sexual activity of farm animals.
Chainama East Hospital Psychiatrist Francis Simeenda said mental disorder is one of major factors that cause some people to commit bestiality.
Dr Simeenda said cultural settings and religion such as cults cause people to have sexual contacts with animals.
“One of the major causes of bestiality is mental retardation or pure schizophrenia psychotic disorder,” he said.
He said most of the people that have committed bestiality are loners as they are in isolated dwellings, while others practise it as culture or religion.
Dr Simeenda said mental disorder is so wide and does not only relate to violence or people seen picking food from rubbish heaps, bins or pits but also from normal homes and working environments.
He said a good number of people do not realise that they have a mental disorder until the situation worsens hence the need for through health checks up which are important to the development of human beings.
“Mental health is equally critical like other health problems hence the need for people to have these checks,” Dr Simeenda said.
Dr Simeenda said it is therefore also important that prosecutors subject persons charged with bestiality to mental checkups before being tried in the Courts of Law because the majority of such cases are believed be as the result of mental retardation.
He said there is no to rush the suspects to the courts before checking their mental status because mental retardation is just about people being violent, behaving funny or looking scruffy.
“Let us not judge mental disorderly by someone looking scruffy or dwelling on garbage heaps,” Dr Simeenda said.
However, to improve the situation, Dr Simeenda said education and meant treatment is critical as well as provision of social amenities.
Locally the practice is believed to be far more common among boys raised on farms and rural area, where sexual contact is prompted by observations of the sexual activity of farm animals.
University of Zambia sociologist Eliphas Machacha said the level of interaction of people and animals is also a factor.
Mr Machacha says it was for this reason that a lot of bestiality cases are common in the rural areas where animal husbandry is one of the main stay the local economy.
“From a sociological point of view, the behaviour of an individual, individuals, or group is shaped by the groups where they belong. For example, if somebody associates with criminals, there is a likelihood of them becoming like that or behaving as such,” Mr Machaha said.
Mr Machaha said beastiality is far more common among boys and young men raised on farms and rural area, where sexual contact is prompted by watching sexual activities of farm animals.
He says the practice is common in rural areas when some young men herding cattle starts developing affection towards the animals especially immediately after coming out of age or during the same period.
“Some boys start developing the desire to have sex with animal because the interaction and watching animals having sex,” Mr Machaha said.
Mr Machacha says there is possibility some boys go undiscovered because they are mostly alone in the bush with the animals.
He also attributed mental disorder to the practice of human animal sexual interaction.
Traditional Healers Association of Zambia (THPAZ) president Rodwell Vongo said the practice is influenced by lust for sex by mostly men as well as idling due to lack of social amenities and jobs.
“So many people are idle, that is why the devil is taking advantage of them. They fall short of the Glory of God,” Dr Vongo said
Dr Vongo said there no need to laugh at such people but help them to recover because that is an abnormal situation.
The traditional healer, however, ruled out a possibility of people committing bestiality to practising rituals.
Dr Vongo emphasised that there are no rituals involved and so society should not demonise genuine healers that they are cause of this practice.
He said there is no traditional medicine which is prescribed by asking someone to have sexual contact with a chicken or any other animal.
“That is purely mental disorder and the power of the devil,” Dr Vongo said.
Shalom Embassy Pastor Sunday Sinyangwe said it is Biblically clear as written in Leviticus 18:23 that people should have sexual relations with an animal and defile themselves with it.
Leviticus 18:23 reads; “Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it.”
Moreover, it is a criminal offence to have sexual contact with animal.
According to the CAP 87 of the Laws of Zambia section 155 any person who has carnal knowledge is guilty of felony and liable to imprisonment for 14 years.
However, Pastor Sinyangwe said people should understand that beastiality is more of a spiritual thing, satanic and demonic which needs prayers to solve.
He said some people are under spell or curse because it is not possible for human beings who can treasure sexual contacts with animals.
“These are last days which the Bible talks about. It is witchcraft for someone to sleep with an animal. Some people do not understand what the devil has released into society,” Pastor Sinyangwe said.
He said some people’s greediness of wanting to prosper or acquire wealth, is what is influencing them get certain super natural power from the devil to the extent of sleeping with an animal.
Pastor Sinyangwe said the country should not just read about article or hear similar stories and ignore, but cry out to God to help the people involved and the nation at large.
He said the Church should rise and pray to curtail all the demonic forces that are afflicting human beings by having carnal knowledge against the order of nature.
Pastor Sinyangwe says human sexuality is the expression of sexual sensation and related intimacy between human beings and not animals.
However, it is hard to come to grips with this phenomenon, because it is believed that women in Zambia outnumber men, therefore, one does not need to go far to find a woman.