By Lawrence Makamanzi
When fathers become killers, children pay the ultimate price for adult conflicts they did not start and cannot understand.
Two cases involving domestic violence and children have left the same unbearable image: a father, a family home and children who did not wake up.
Two cases, one child-protection failure
In Great Denham, near Bedford, England, police found Nothabo Zandile Tshuma, 42, and her daughters, Natalie, 15, and Nala, 5, dead.
British prosecutors have authorised three murder charges against the husband and father, Ndodana Mkhanyisi Tshuma, following his arrest in Johannesburg.
However, a court must determine his guilt.
Days later, police opened a murder investigation after a cabin fire in Eastview Phase 10, Harare.
The fire killed Aldine Muyengwa, 5, and Ropafadzo Muyengwa, 2.
Police allege that their father, Gift Muyengwa, 24, attacked their mother, Tsitsi Zuze, 22, during a domestic dispute.
They allege that he set fire to the room where the children slept.
Muyengwa remains a suspect, and the allegations against him also require proof in court.
The cases differ in their circumstances, evidence and legal processes, so we should not force them into one simple story.
However, they share a truth that demands public attention.
Children who had no responsibility for adult conflict lost their lives inside homes that should have protected them.
When Fathers Become Killers: Recognising the Warning Signs
The first danger is to explain such horror too quickly.
Poverty, migration, unemployment, alcohol, relationship breakdown and mental distress may increase pressure within a household.
When fathers become killers, the tragedy rarely begins with the final act of violence.
Millions of men face hardship without harming their partners or children.
Likewise, millions of people with mental health conditions never commit violence.
An explanation must therefore examine choices, power and warning signs.
It must not turn hardship into an excuse or mental illness into a label for cruelty.
Research presents domestic violence as more than an argument that suddenly went too far.
It often involves coercive control, which means repeated behaviour used to dominate another person.
That behaviour may include threats, isolation, surveillance, humiliation, financial restriction or physical force.
The World Health Organisation says intimate partner violence grows from several interacting factors.
They include harmful alcohol use, childhood exposure to abuse, attitudes that justify violence, controlling behaviour and unequal power between men and women.
WHO also identifies poverty and unemployment as risk factors.
However, a risk factor raises probability and does not prove the cause of any individual crime.
That distinction matters because careless analysis can shift attention from an alleged offender’s decisions to the pressures surrounding him.
It can also imply that a woman could have prevented violence by behaving differently, staying quiet or remaining in a relationship.
Yet responsibility belongs to the person who chooses violence.
Migration deserves similar care in the Bedford case because relocation can strain identity, finances, marriage and support networks.
Yet migration itself does not create abuse.
Some men may have learned to treat a husband’s authority as an entitlement.
They may struggle when a spouse gains greater financial independence or legal protection abroad.
The problem is not equality, however, but the belief that losing control over another person amounts to losing manhood.
Healthy masculinity accepts disagreement and respects a partner’s independence.
It also recognises that separation never cancels a parent’s duty to protect a child.
Violence against women also harms children
Zimbabwe must confront the same beliefs at home, where people sometimes dismiss threats between partners as private family business.
Neighbours may hear violence, relatives may notice fear and church leaders may advise endurance because they want to preserve a marriage.
Such silence can protect an abusive relationship rather than the people trapped inside it.
UNICEF reported in 2025 that roughly 610 million children live with mothers who experience intimate partner violence.
That is about one in four children worldwide.
The estimate rises to 32% of children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Violence between adults is therefore also a major child-protection crisis.
Even when nobody directly attacks a child, repeated exposure can damage emotional development, learning and health.
It can also distort a child’s understanding of love and power.
In the worst cases, children may become direct targets or bargaining tools.
One parent may use them to punish the other, as these allegations show.
Recognise danger before tragedy
This is why authorities must assess danger to children whenever anyone reports domestic violence.
An officer should not ask only whether an adult survivor has visible injuries.
The officer should ask whether an alleged abuser has threatened death, arson, suicide, abduction or harm to the children.
Police should also check for weapons, increasingly frequent violence, stalking or a partner’s attempt to leave.
Together, these questions form a danger assessment.
This structured check helps professionals identify cases that require urgent protection.
Turn legal rights into real protection
Zimbabwe already has a legal foundation for action.
Section 81 of the Constitution says a child’s best interests are paramount in every matter concerning that child.
The Children’s Act also provides a system for protecting children who face abuse or neglect.
The Domestic Violence Act allows courts to issue protection orders.
However, paper rights matter only when survivors can quickly reach police, shelters, health care, counselling and legal help.
Government should publish clear information on where families can obtain emergency assistance.
Every police station must also handle domestic violence reports seriously and privately.
Officers, nurses, teachers and social workers need practical training to recognise escalating danger, preserve evidence, make referrals and create safety plans with survivors.
Preventing cases in which fathers become killers requires early intervention, survivor protection and firm accountability.
A safety plan provides personalised steps for leaving danger, contacting trusted people and protecting essential documents and medicines.
It must also explain how to move children to a secure place.
Communities also need confidential shelters and emergency transport.
Telling a survivor to leave means little when that person has nowhere safe to go.
Counselling for men should form part of prevention, but it cannot replace accountability or become compulsory couples therapy in an unsafe relationship.
Joint counselling can expose a survivor to retaliation when one partner uses fear and control.
Trained professionals must first assess safety and work separately where necessary.
Men, churches and communities must act
Men who feel overwhelmed should have affordable ways to seek help through clinics, workplaces, churches and community groups before distress becomes a crisis.
Those services should teach emotional control, nonviolent conflict resolution and responsible parenting.
They should also challenge the idea that silence, dominance or aggression proves strength.
Churches carry special influence in Zimbabwean families and should use it to protect life rather than preserve appearances.
Pastors must condemn abuse plainly and refer dangerous cases to qualified services.
They must explain that forgiveness does not require a survivor to remain within reach of violence.
Schools and early childhood centres also need simple reporting procedures.
Teachers often notice fear, withdrawal, injuries or sudden behavioural changes before other professionals do.
Diaspora associations can connect newcomers to legal information, counselling and peer support.
They must also make clear that culture never justifies control or violence.
Most importantly, we must stop waiting for a death before treating threats as serious.
When a person says, “If you leave me, I will kill you, the children or myself,” family members, police, churches and neighbours should recognise a warning, not dismiss emotional words.
Nothabo, Natalie, Nala, Aldine and Ropafadzo deserved safety and the chance to grow older.
Their deaths should move us beyond outrage toward a child-centred system that spots danger early, protects survivors and holds violent people accountable.
Pain gives no father ownership of another life, and no child should become a weapon in adult conflict.
When fathers become killers, society must examine the warning signs, protection failures and attitudes that allowed the danger to grow.
