Teen marriages are fuelling poverty--Kanyumba

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR

     Signing visitors' book: Kanyumba

Minister of Youth Development and Sports Lucius Kanyumba on Friday appealed to parents in Balaka to stop marrying off their daughters at tender ages and, instead, let the adolescents concentrate on education.

Speaking after paying a visit to a Balaka-based Nkhadze Alive Youth Organization (Nayorg) on Friday, Kanyumba lectured the parents that marry off their daughters in exchange for fortunes that teen marriages cannot solve the socioeconomic challenges, but increase the poverty levels.

“Give children a chance to learn…they have a right to education. Don’t force them into marriages because that won’t solve your socioeconomic problems. Early marriages will just exacerbate the poverty situation of the families,” said the minister.

Kanyumba stated that studies have shown that a majority of teen marriages suffer from complications and often the relationships to not last long.

“It’s teenage mothers that are at greater risk of socioeconomic disadvantage throughout their lives than those who delay childbearing. As parents, you need to know that adolescent pregnancies are associated with higher rates of morbidity and mortality for both the mother and infant,” he said.

  Presenting Likuni Phala to the needy child: Kanyumba

But the minister hailed Nayorg for its youth programmes saying they are inspiring young people to concentrate on education.

Nayorg executive director Charles Sinetre said his organization was committed towards empowering the youths with skills for HIV and early marriage prevention.

“We’ll remain committed towards empowering young people to achieve their dreams,” Sinetre assured.

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Drug abuse, youth and crime

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR

“On your own plea of guilty, this court finds you guilty and duly convicts you. Before I pass sentence, do you have anything in mitigation?” says First Grade Magistrate Esther Elia Phiri of Lilongwe registry as she straightens her head up to see the reaction of the convict, Anusa.


“Yes worship! I pray to this court to exercise lenience on me because this is my first time to commit a crime. I would also like to confess here that it was not my intention to commit this crime, but I was cheated by my friend who told me chamba gives academic ingenuity,” pleads an 18-year old Anusa while looking down in depression and regret.

“It was my friend, Zonizo, who handed me a cigarette of cannabis sativa to smoke while we were partying…and I did not know it was such a dangerous drug that could put me in such a difficult problem,” he adds

Anusa raises his head up to look at his parents who are sitting in the public gallery. He sees them shedding a tear or two as they try to shy away from his gaze. Though he is pleading for lenience, Anusa knows quite well that the crime he committed just last night, rape with violence, will still earn him separation from his parents and relatives through death penalty.

He is fully aware that if he is lucky enough he will be spared death, but still earn a considerable custodial sentences of not less than ten years for rape attracts a maximum of 14 years imprisonment with hard labour.

“Considering that you are young and that you have had no criminal record before as you and the state have submitted, this court will take these as your mitigating factors.

“This court is also mindful of your tender age and that you still have a future to make, and considering that maximum sentences are reserved for serious criminals, this court is compelled to exercise its lenience on you. I will also consider the factor that you showed remorse by pleading guilty to the charge and that you did not waste court’s time as your mitigating factors,” says magistrate Phiri.

She pauses a bit, takes a bottle of water, drinks and puts the container down again.

“But this court feels obliged to pass a meaningful custodial sentence on the convict because cases of rape and women abuse are becoming rampant. This court does not find it necessary to exercise on the convict because he committed the crime under the influence of alcohol and drugs,” she states. She looks the public gallery to see the people’s reaction.

Phiri sees some faces expressing approval of what she is putting forward to Anusa, especially ladies who are most of the times victims of alcohol and drug abuse in families, schools and any other places of entertainment. The convicts’ parents are still tucked in shame while silently shedding tears of deep sorrow. They have to because they also know this is the beginning of a new life in their family.

They will no longer see him. They will not be able to send him to buy something at the grocery. He will be temporarily unavailable for some years. In short, this is the end of their son’s future, or do they just fear?

The magistrate takes a few minutes scribbling some notes on her file, which no one can access with naked eyes from afar. And the court remains quiet with Anusa still standing in the dock with his hands akimbo.

He is visualizing life in prison; life far from parental care at his age when he desperately needs them to pay his school fees. Anusa has heard stories before of people dying in prison due to lack of food resulting from congestion, a problem our country’s reformatories are best known for.

“I am doomed. My future is doomed. God forget the day I was born,” he curses within himself as he awaits his final destination from the magistrate.

After Phiri finishes writing whatever she was writing, she adjusts her sitting posture, drawing the chair closer to the desk. She clears her throat while facing the convict, parents sitting about five metres away the court clerk’s desk.

“This is your verdict,” she announces. “But before I do that, let me stress here that peer pressure is not an excuse for committing crimes and can never be a mitigating factor. Whether you committed a crime with or without help or influence, the court will pass the same sentence on you. It is up to you to choose who your good friend is.”

“I am, therefore, sentencing you to 12 years imprisonment with hard labour with effect from day of your arrest. This sentence shall serve as a warning to young people who think life is about abusing women after drinking or smoking unnecessarily,” concludes magistrate Phiri attracting the convicts’ loud cry.

“Nditengeni ine chonde mwana wanga msiyeni. Ndikagwire ukaidiwo ndineyo (Set him free. Take me instead, I will serve the sentence on his behalf),” says the mother in her grief-stricken tone. But on what crime can the court pass that sentence on her? Well, she can play Jesus, but courts do not believe in human saviours who can die for other people’s crimes.

Anusa was celebrating his selection to secondary school the previous day when his peers cheated him that beer offers maximum entertainment and celebration. So they went to a certain Mtonjane brewer where they guzzled more than enough that they even forgot their names and where they had come from.

“Takagwireni man kuti mtseguke m’maso. Izi zimachotsa manyazi mwene,” said his friend, Jungayunga, as he handed Anusa a locally-made cigarette of chamba.

The celebrant had no time to ask what the stuff was until the following day when he found himself standing before the magistrate answering questions from law-enforcers for forcing himself on a woman.

It was said that after taking one too much, Anusa decided to bed one or two girls as a way of bidding farewell to village girls as he was now going to secondary school that was far from his home. One has to spend not less than K1000 to reach the destination. Unfortunately, his new destination was now Maula Prison where he would be for the coming 12 years.

This is but one example of how alcohol and drug abuse can destroy somebody’s future in a short period of time. Abuse of alcohol and drugs have put many young men the world over in serious problems they would never imagine happening to them. Some have found themselves in mental hospitals after taking in too much of pills or smoking chamba wholesale.

Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security Earnest Malenga recently told journalist in Lilongwe that Malawi was one of the countries faced with serious drug production and, abuse and trafficking in the SADC region.

Malenga explained that about 75 to 80 percent of mental cases in Malawi were a result of alcohol and drug abuse, especially among young people.

“The Rapid Situation Assessment report on Drug Abuse and HIV/AIDS in Malawi conducted by the Centre for Social Research of the University of Malawi undertaken in 2004 revealed that there is massive abuse of drugs in the country,” said the minister when he was signing memorandum of understanding on behalf of government of Malawi with FORUT, an international development organization that is trying to fight alcohol and drug abuse in different countries across the globe.

“There are three main drugs of abuse in Malawi , namely alcohol, cannabis sativa (locally known as chamba) and tobacco,” said Malenga. He added that excessive use of drugs and alcohol has led to many families breaking up, pupils getting expelled from schools and drivers causing unnecessary accidents and high infection rate for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV and AIDS.

“The other problem with alcohol is that besides being dangerous to the individual drinker, it is also harmful to those around us such as women, children who bear the brunt of the aggression and violence caused by alcohol and drugs,” explained Malenga.

He blamed the problem on lack of active legislation on the use of alcohol and drugs citing drinking joints which remain open 24 hours because there was no law that guides bar owners on times of opening and closing. Malenga, however, reported that Malawi has now put in place a framework for combating the problem through the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Drug Control chaired by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security.

He warned that Malawi may risk degenerating into a society of drug addicts if use of alcohol and drugs is not properly managed.

On the MOU he signed on behalf of the government of Malawi, the minister said FORUT was committed to provide the country with technical assistance in the field of alcohol, specifically in areas of research and documentation, competence building, policy development, mobilization and awareness-raising, strengthening of law enforcement institutions and the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Drug Control and Eradication of Cannabis Sativa (chamba).

In his remarks, FORUT Secretary General Morten Lonstad said the programme to combat the abuse of alcohol and drugs in Malawi came after Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation had advised the organization to involve countries in Southern Africa .

“Our aim is to build networks of national and international NGOs where ideas, experiences and knowledge on prevention strategies and policy advocacy can be exposed and further developed,” said Lonstad.
He added: “The programme in Malawi aims at linking the ADD issue to other development issues, as the spreading of HIV and AIDS, gender-based violence and children at risk.”

Lonstad promised that his organization will continuously help Malawi with the required assistance in her fight against alcohol and drug abuse.

“There are vested interests such as the alcohol industry, but if we work together, civil society, faith-based organizations, government ministries, politicians, traditional leaders and all stakeholders, I am sure we should be able to map the way forward to prevent and control alcohol and drug abuse in Malawi so that at the end of the day we should reduce cases of violence and other delinquencies resulting from too much consumption of beer or drugs,” said Home Affairs and Internal Security Principal Secretary Martin Mononga echoing the FORUT Secretary General.

“And we expect to have reduced cases of misbehaviours resulting from alcohol and drug abuse thereby reducing criminal acts also,” said Mononga.
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Staggering and struggling for 50:50 campaign

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR

Alice Deliwe-Ngoma is a Malawi Congress Party (MCP) aspiring parliamentary candidate for Mzimba Luwerezi.

She is among 217 other female aspiring politicians that have presented nomination papers to the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) expressing their interest and willingness to battle it out in a game that has for some time been regarded as a “no-go zone for ladies”.

But Deliwe-Ngoma attests that she has an uphill task to convince people she wants to serve that she can deliver. She knows how difficult it is to convince Malawians who have all along been made to believe that women are capable of nothing, but cooking and making a home.

“It is very hard,” she confirms, “but I am determined to prove that women can perform miracles if given a chance.”

Deliwe-Ngoma makes this brave statement in a society that is synonymous with rampant cases of gender-based violence; a society where men use everything at their disposal to suppress women aspirations.

In her speech during the commemoration of this year’s International Women’s Day, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) country representative, Esperance Fundira, said gender-based violence in this country is still persisting despite the many efforts government and its development partners have stepped up to raise ladies’ profiles to match friends of the opposite sex.

Men have dominated almost every sector of life apart from preparing food at home and washing clothes and looking after the children at home.

It is, therefore, not surprising that some men have sarcastically referred to married women as “goal-keepers” for the mere fact that they had been relying on their husbands, parents or guardians for everything including simple basic needs.

All this has been happening despite the fact that Malawi is a signatory to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), global platform for action and the Beijing Declaration; and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, just to mention a few.

At the regional level, Malawi is a signatory to the African Charter on Human Rights, the Solemn Declaration on Gender equality, and the protocol to the African charter on people and human rights on the Rights of women in Africa.

However, the question one would ask is: despite all these commitments government has made, are we in the right direction to the achievement of 50-50 campaign for women representation in decision-making positions? What exactly is this campaign about?

UNFPA’s Fundira says 50-50 campaign programme is not just about numbers, but making a difference in all levels of decision-making. It is about making a difference in repositioning gender equality issues in politics and national development agenda.

She believes that all these cases of domestic violence are a result of lack of empowerment and would have been history by now if women were empowered.

“If these girls and women were empowered enough to challenge any forms of gender-based violence, definitely they would never suffer the devastating and humiliating condition of fistula, unwanted pregnancies and HIV and Aids,” she says.

Fundira further states that women in decision-making positions like parliamentarians have the potential of fostering socio-economic development since “it is common knowledge that a woman has a loving heart”.

“Already the sitting female MPs have demonstrated that women can make a difference in the country’s social and economic development,” agrees Weston Msowoya, project manager of the Malawi Human Rights Youth Network (MHRYN) who is based in Lilongwe.

Msowoya concurs with Fundira that gender-based violence is one of the major challenges facing the campaign for 50-50 women representation in decision-making positions.

“We, first of all, have to champion for zero tolerance to violence against women and girls in schools, public places, homes, workplaces, worship centres and all our communities. It is time for men and women, boys and girls to work together to end these shameful violations of human rights,” he says.

However, Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) executive director Undule Mwakasungula observes that there is need for concerted efforts to support and enhance the skills of the current crop of aspiring female parliamentarians ahead of the coming elections if Malawi wants to realize its dream of achieving the 50-50 campaign programme.

Mwakasungula discloses that experience from the previous general elections had shown that lack of confidence and campaign skills were two of the major obstacles to women’s entry into parliament and other decision-making structures.

In view of these facts, the CHRR boss said his NGO decided to come up with a capacity building trainings to enhance the skills and confidence of aspiring female MPs as the country is preparing to have general elections slated for May 19 this year.

It is not the civil society organizations that that shown their keenness to support women in their struggle to match men in decision-making positions.

Senior Chief Mabulabo of Mzimba has joined the bandwagon of the campaigners of the 50-50 women representation. Mabulabo declares that he will champion for the rights of women in his area including supporting women in politics.

Speaking at Emfeni LEA School ground during this year’s International Women’s Day where, among other things, he appealed to his subjects to desist from abusing the rights of women, girls and children saying the practice is detrimental to human and psychological health of the victims.

“Time has come my fellow Malawians that we should give women a chance to run the affairs of the society,” said the traditional leader.

“Gone are the days when women were confined to household chores like cooking, fetching firewood and water. Time is gone for discriminating women on the basis of sex; we were all the same in the eyes of God and we all have the capacity to change things if given a chance,” stressed Mabulabo.

The chief explained that he summoned his subjects to join government in commemorating the women’s day to show his commitment towards the achieve 50-50 women representation in decision-making positions.

“Malawi is today commemorating this year’s International Women’s Day and I thought it would be important that we, too, should take part. As a guard of traditions, I want to tell you that this day is very important to us all, not only women, to renew our commitment to the fight against gender based violence,” said Mabulabo.

On politics, the traditional leader asked people to support women in politics to enhance good governance and achieve gender equality. He, however, warned his subjects against voting into power people who cannot articulate issues saying that would dilute the whole idea of choosing responsible leaders.

“If I say we have to support women; I do not mean to say just vote for anyone as long as it is a woman, no. Let us vote for women who can help bring development in our area. Let us give people a vote on merit,” he said.

Minister of Gender, Women and Child Development, Anna Kachikho, said when she officially launched a Resource Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming of Human Resource Management at Capital Hotel that government was committed towards empowering women as evidenced by the initiatives being taken in social, economical and political spheres geared towards addressing imbalances that have all along existed.

Kachikho said the societal stereotypes that breed discrimination of one group of people from others is a major that retards development of the world economy.

“The world economy could have been so miles better off had it been that the problems of discrimination and bias against one sex group were inexistence,” she emphasizes.

And during the International Women’s Day under theme: End Violence: Support women in politics, Kachikho said: “We have made the theme to relate with the 50:50 campaign, which is currently underway. Women have been experiencing violence in many forms on of which are political in nature.”

“We, therefore, would like to set an environment where women are not subject to violence politically but instead they should be supported for the development of his nation,” she appealed.

But Kachikho has one thing to clarify to the general public if people have to take her seriously for her ministry is said to be discriminating the same women they are championing their rights and empowerment for.

The ministry recently issued a press statement stating that it will not support female aspirants standing on independent tickets. This is a drawback to the fight for equal opportunity to politics.

It is for this reason that the MCP’s Alice Deliwe Ngoma feels CHRR and other non-governmental organizations should continue lobbying political leaders and other agencies, such as the media, to create a more conducive environment for women participation in decision-making to become reality.

Ngoma complains that media houses only concentrate on candidates contesting in urban areas while neglecting those living in rural areas.

She, therefore, appealed to the media to open up and reach out to all candidates across the country to ensure that all voters are accorded opportunity to elect deserving people into positions of authority. She emphasized that media has a key role in providing eligible voters with relevant information about their candidates.

CHRR is running a series of campaigns aimed at promoting the role of women in decision-making with funding from Danish Church Aid.

Under the project, the organization is targeting female aspirants from the districts of Karonga, Rumphi and Mzimba in the north while in the centre Kasungu, Lilongwe, Dedza, Ntchisi, Ntcheu and Salima districts to build capacity for the women aspiring candidates so that they may be able to face men during campaign podia.

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