Malawi Women Fight for Rights Amid Challenges

Women’s rights organizations in Malawi are pushing for equality in a male-dominated society. Voice of America English to Africa reporter Lameck Masina in Blantyre reports on some of their efforts.

Women’s groups in Malawi complain that the Constitution, adopted in 1995, does not protect women well enough. It includes a Bill of Rights that establishes the principle of equality for women. Women make up over half the country’s population. But they say they’re not treated fairly on many issues. An example is the distribution of land in divorce cases. A widow does not inherit her husband’s land unless she can produce a legal document showing joint ownership, or she must show she contributed financially to the upkeep of the property. Most women cannot do that. So in many cases, the husband’s family simply occupies the land after he dies.

A campaign to introduce inheritance legislation is being undertaken by the Malawi Chapter of the advocacy group Women and Law in Southern Africa Research Trust, (WLSA-Malawi).

Seode White is the national coordinator for the organization. She says, “At the moment the law dispossesses women of their property when the husband dies. Because in a country like this one, you will find out that when the husband dies, the family from the male side come and dispossess her of the property the [because] we believe in Malawi that a husband and a wife are never related and therefore when he dies for sure the property must belong to him [the man’s relatives].”

White says once enacted, the legislation will impose a heavy penalty on those who take the property of a widow.

She says another cause of concern is that Malawian women are far behind in the workplace because of what she calls Malawi’s patriarchal nature.

“The construction of our society is oppressive to women. It treats women as second-class citizens. Women in Malawi do not believe in themselves no matter how intelligent they are. Women in Malawi do not occupy even the most basic positions. [In] the positions of clerks, messengers, at managerial level, the story is the same. Most of these are occupied by men.”

White encourages women’s groups to hold governments accountable by lobbying politicians and pushing to change oppressive laws.

In 2006, the organization successfully pressed for the enactment of the Malawi Prevention of Domestic Violence legislation, which criminalizes domestic violence against women. But she says in addition to some success stories, there have been many problems.

“The biggest challenge has been slow efforts by our government to pass laws that we have recommended and fought for change. For example Will and Inheritance, Marriage Laws, Citizenship laws all these are highly discriminatory and highly oppressive. So the challenges are the slowness of the process and lack of commitment and we are very concerned about the government’s position on this issue at this time.”

But a published report by Women and Law in Southern Africa titled Beyond Inequalities indicates that the government has also been making progress in promoting equality over the past 10 years. Among its successes is a National Gender Policy that works to encourage the equal participation of men and women. The government has also named the country’s first woman attorney general, and women hold the top posts at the National Electoral Commission and the ministries of foreign affairs and of information.

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FACTFILE... on Malawi

By Tara Dundon

MALAWI is a landlocked country in south-eastern Africa.
It is bordered by Zambia to the north-west, Tanzania to the north and Mozambique, which surrounds it on the east, south and west.

Malawi’s most prominent physical feature is Lake Malawi, some 360 miles long and about 1,500ft above sea level.

Like an inland sea it has endless palm fringed beaches, enclosed by sheer mountains.

The country’s official language is English.

Malawi has a population of about 12 million.

Their currency is called the Kwacha.

Malawi Queens 5th in new netball ranking

The International Federation of Netball Associations(Ifna) has launched a new world ranking system for the sport that will provide a more accurate reflection of the current form of countries competing internationally, Malawi's The Daily Times has reported.

International Federation of Netball Associations(Ifna) has launched a new world ranking system for the sport that will provide a more accurate reflection of the current form of countries competing internationally, Malawi's The Daily Times reported today.

The newspaper quotes ifna's website www.netball.org to say despite the new system Malawi Queens remain fifth in the world and first in Africa.

Malawi who were unranked under the old system as they did not participate in the World Championships in 2003 now take their rightful position following exceptional performances at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne 2006, the Cosana regional championships and more recently at the New World Netball World Championships.

According to the Daily Times, the website says Australia tops the new rankings following their continued success on the world stage, beating New Zealand into second place at the World Championships in Auckland.

New Zealand are second while England are third with Jamaica on fourth.

The Southern Africa country of Malawi can now feel proud with the Queens position since they have failed miserably in football.

The Malawi Queens are currently preparing for a trip to England next month where they are expected to play a series of friendlies with the country.

According to The Daily Times, England is already in top gear marketing the test series using Malawi's talented veteran player Mary Waya to promote the matches and woo more people.

Study casts light on insidious disease

CATRIONA Bradshaw's interest in women's health received a giant boost when she was working with her partner in Malawi in the late 1990s.

The young doctor volunteered in the thousand-bed Blantyre Hospital when the area was in the grip of HIV.

“I remember turning up for work each morning and there were 300 people queuing, some of whom had walked for days to get there,” the specialist in sexual health recalls.

These days one of Dr Bradshaw's principal interests is the lesser-known, but insidious condition bacterial vaginosis, the most common genital disease in women. Although the considerable health dangers it poses are documented, its cause has not yet been identified and treatments often fail.

This is a problem, because in women who have it, the rate of obstetric difficulties doubles, as does the risk of miscarriage, together with an increased incidence in pelvic inflammatory disease.

“It does not cause symptoms in at least 50 per cent of women who have it and for those who have symptoms, the most common are an abnormal discharge and odor,” Dr Bradshaw, an NHMRC research fellow at Monash University, said.

She is attempting to illuminate some of the mysteries of the condition with a new study which will assess and track 500 female university students.

The study will look at the prevalence of BV within that population and see whether it can be associated with sexual or contraceptive practices.

Testing for the condition is simple: a vaginal swab is analysed under a microscope. In women with BV there is a striking absence of the health-maintaining lacto-bacilli which should abound.

Instead, there is a range of other bacteria. “The problem is we don't know if any of those are the causative agent of BV or secondary invaders after the lacto-bacilli dropped off,” Dr Bradshaw said.

The study is being funded by a $20,000 fellowship she was awarded last year from L'Oreal Australia.

Australian-born professor Elizabeth Blackburn has been named the 2008 L'OREAL-UNESCO laureate for Women in Science, for North America, a $US100,000 ($107,000) award.

Based at the University of California, Professor Blackburn is recognised as one of the world's leading biomedical researchers and will be honoured in Paris today for the discovery of the nature and maintenance of chromosome ends and their roles in cancer and ageing.