CULTURE-MALAWI: Women Champion For Removal Of Discriminatory Laws

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Brian Ligomeka

BLANTYRE, Jul 7 2003 (IPS) - With domestic abuse and violence against women on the rise, Malawian women activists have drafted several bills aimed at ending the suffering they endure in their lives.

With domestic abuse and violence against women on the rise, Malawian women activists have drafted several bills aimed at ending the suffering they endure in their lives.

The bills, which women activists in the tiny Southern African nation of 11 million people have proposed for enactment, include one on Marital Rape, Citizenship and Wills and Inheritance Act.

Women activists have taken the initiative of drafting these bills after realising that the current laws are working to the disadvantage of women. Some of the laws, which women are proposing for repulsion and amendment, place women as second class citizens and unequal to men.

Some of the laws, which women activists have proposed have sparked heated debate and controversy in a nation, which is male dominated. One the proposed bills which has generated controversy is the proposal to criminalize marital rape.

The proposed law, drafted by Women and Law in Southern Africa (WILSA), a women’s organization, would make forced sex within marriage a criminal offence punishable by up to seven years hard labour in jail.

Many Malawian men have snubbed the campaign, and said that the activists have nothing better to do with the thousands of dollars they get from donors.

But Seodi White, whose Malawi chapter of Women in Law in Southern Africa drafted the bill, says the proposed law would cut down domestic violence that affects so many women in the country.

Malawian law currently defines rape as forcing a member of the opposite sex who is not one’s spouse into having sex without consent. By entering into marriage each spouse is taken to have consented to sexual intercourse with the other spouse during the existence of his or her marriage .

According to White, research carried out by her organization found that 75 percent of Malawian wives had been forced to have sex with their husbands who come home either drunk or drugged. Most of these women, the study says, will not speak out because they fear being divorced by their husbands. White attributes the high incidence of marital rape to weak laws on rape and cultural beliefs.

"Courts have generally viewed rape, as created under the penal code, as not applying to married couples," she says adding: "and, based on our cultural beliefs, the consent to marriage has been recognized as automatic consent to sex even when the woman does not feel like it. The exemption of husbands from prosecution under the offences of rape therefore totally fails to provide equal protection for all women," she says.

One Malawian justice, however, held a different view. Supreme Court Judge Duncan Tambala told a gathering of activists who were fine-tuning the proposed Marital Rape Bill, that he would have problems accepting that an offence like marital rape should be created.

The judge said criminalizing forced sex among married couples would be inconsistent with the continued existence of marriage.

"By entering into marriage each spouse is taken to have consented to sexual intercourse with the other spouse during the existence of his or her marriage," he said.

Church members have also frowned upon the moves to criminalize forced sex among married couples. Pastor Semion Ngana, a cleric from central district of Ntcheu, says the Bible states that men and women should be submissive to each other in marriage. "What does it mean when it says the body of the man belongs to the woman and so is the woman’s?" he says.

Most men on the streets of Malawi dismiss the issue, saying it defeats the government’s fight against the spread of AIDS. Many argue that if a man is faced with revolt in his own bedroom he might seek solace outside, thus increasing chances of contracting the disease which currently affects more than 10 percent of the country’s population.

"If my wife says ‘no’, what do I do?" says one man. "I will be forced to pay for sex elsewhere."

But Seodi White says her organization will continue to push for legislation against marital rape. "Women… are often raped by their bedfellows as a form of punishment," she says. The draft bill has already been sent to the Law Commission, which will finalise it before pushing it to Parliament for debate.

Besides the issue of marital rape, there are also some pieces of legislation that are inconsistent with the new constitution, which the Malawi government adopted in 1995, which guarantees equal rights for women and men through a Bill of Rights.

Executive Director of Civil Liberties Committee Emmie Chanika says her organisation is not comfortable with the Citizenship Act. According to the Act, a Malawian woman, who marries a foreigner, loses her right to the country’s citizenship unless she renounces the citizenship of her foreign husband by the first anniversary of their marriage.

The same Citizenship Act also says children of a Malawian woman by a foreign husband cannot be Malawian citizens. Chanika says she wants the Act to be repealed charging that it discriminates against women and violates their rights, including the right to choose.

"Implicitly, it also means a Malawian woman has no citizenship status in her own right and is thus unable to pass it on to her children or spouse," says Chanika, who disclosed that women lawyers are currently working on bill which will ensure that the Act gives equal status to both men and women. She observed: "This Act is injurious to national development and democracy."

Another Act, which women activists worked on and has already been tabled in Parliament is the Wills and Inheritance Act, which in the past only catered for the death of a man. The Act was silent on women and what should happen to their property after their death.

The outdated Wills and Inheritance Act stipulated how property of a deceased husband should be distributed. It was silent on property owned by a woman, assuming they could not own property. Malawi Chapter of WILSA in consultation the Law Commission and other women rights organisations reviewed the Act. What remains is for Parliament to pass it into law.

When the bill will be enacted, women will be seen as equal partners with men in accumulating wealth. It will also deter the tendency of relatives of the deceased husband from grabbing the property from the wife.

Besides pressing for the repulsion and amendment of laws, which are oppressive to women, the activists are also waging war against religious and cultural practices that impinge on the rights of women. Chanika says this is not an easy war because Malawi’s culture is very patriarchal, often contradicting the rights of women. She said as such it encourages disrespect for women’s reproductive rights, since children are viewed as a sign of wealth and condones domestic violence, including wife battering.

Such practices violate provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to which Malawi is also a signatory, which make it clear that discrimination and violence against women violates the principles of rights and respect for human dignity.

She said that this is why women organisations have embarked on various civic education programmes through the mass media such as radio programmes aimed at changing the mindset of the society. "We want everybody to look at women as full human beings and allow them to participate in decision making processes at all levels," says Chanika.

"The problem lies in the fact that most religions including Christianity and Islam, women are placed as second class. They cannot hold positions, which men hold. In Roman Catholic Church, women cannot become priests, bishops, cardinals and likewise in Islam women no matter how faithful they are, they cannot become Sheiks and Imams," said Chanika.

She however said that although the process of changing laws, cultural and religious practices cannot happen overnight, they have registered some strid es in their fight against gender equality. She says just in the past five years, they have managed to influence the amendment of the Malawi Army Act, which in the past strictly made it impossible for women to join the military. But as of today, women are part and parcel of the Malawi Defence Forces.

One female soldier 26 year-old Sergeant Grace Mulela who is based at Kamuzu Barracks in Malawi capital Lilongwe says she is very happy to be a soldier, a career which in the past was no go zone area for women. She told IPS that unlike outside the barracks where some women are discriminated, abused and harassed, everyone in the army is treated equally.

"The soldiers in the barracks have treated us equally. And to my surprise at first it was the women of the soldiers who were uncomfortable with our presence in the barracks," she says.

Besides the Army and paramilitary police, women have also made in-roads in some religious circles. The conservative Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, Malawi’s second largest Christian denomination have started ordaining female priests after 100 years of a closed policy on the issue of women.

This is also happening when the country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Malawi has for the first time a lady, Mary Nkosi holding the influential position of deputy central bank governor. "Honestly speaking we are winning the war against gender imbalances, although we have a long way," says Chanika.

Although women constitute 52 percent of Malawi’s population of 11 million and make-up 70 percent of the country’s farmers, they are under-represented in decision-making processes and have limited access to productive assets like land, credit and technology.