Slippery slope of justice for women

The laws are there to protect women, but justice for victims of gender-based violence remains a dream for many. What is the problem? EPHRAIM NYONDO deals with the issue.

They had neither met nor heard about each other before. But on this rainy Friday morning in March 2014, the two women came together, united by shared pain—injustice.

Rose Chibanja, 38, who lives in M’bwana Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Kuntumanji in Zomba, is a mother of three who lost her husband in 2007.

Chibanja remarried in 2010. In early 2013, she fell ill and spent three months in hospital.

When Chibanja left the hospital and returned home, she found her house empty. The man she loved had sold all the property the departed husband left for her.

Chibanja had a bicycle, iron sheets, beds, kitchen utensils and farm equipment.

They all disappeared.

“I asked him about it. He didn’t give me any answers. One day, he became angry and beat me up,” said Chibanja.

Today, the question that puzzles her is: will she ever get justice and regain her property?

Beside Chibanja sat 18-year-old Christina Maxmos from Kachingwe Village in the district.

While in Standard Eight at Katanga Primary School in Zomba in 2013, Christina began a relationship with a Form Three boy.

“He loved me so much. A day could hardly pass without meeting,” she said.

In no time, the love bore a fruit—a pregnancy. When Christina told her lover that she was pregnant, he welcomed the news and promised to begin preparing for marriage.

That was music in her ears. But Christina’s joy did not last. As days turned into weeks and months, the marriage promise began to recede into the distance.

This prompted her father and mother to visit the boy’s parents.

“The boy’s parents told them off. They said their son was not responsible for the pregnancy.

“When my parents told them that he had accepted responsibility for the pregnancy, they laughed it off and chased my parents,” she said.

Christina could not believe that the boy who loved her so much had turned his back on her. She used her friends to talk him into changing his mind.

But the good news never came her way.

When the reality sank in, she and her family accepted their fate. Today, Christina’s baby girl is four months old.

The search for justice

Chibanja and Christina are now engaged in pursuit of justice, thanks to the Women’s Legal Resource Centre (Wolrec) which has trained women in the area in procedures to follow when their rights are violated.

This is part of the access to justice project Worlec is implementing with funding from Oxfam.

“All I want is to get my property back,” said Chibanja.

The first step was to go to her chief. The chief, realising how complicated the case was, advised her to go to court.

The husband was found guilty by the Zomba Magistrate’s Court. He was ordered to pay Chibanja K70 000 (US$172).

“I was told to come to the court—which is 20 kilometres away—every month to get K5 000,” she said.

Four months down the line, Chibanja is yet to receive a penny.

Christina is facing the same problem. The same court ordered the boy who impregnated her to be giving her K5 000 (US$12) a month for child support, but not even a coin has gone into her pockets.

This is the pain shared by many women across the country in their search for justice.

There is a problem.

In 2013, Worlec conducted a needs assessment of the use of gender-related laws. Using a sample of 30 rulings by the First Grade Magistrate’s court and Third Grade Magistrate’s court in Balaka, Wolrec found that 11 out of 15 judgements handed down by the First Grade Magistrate’s court cited the law.

In the Third Grade Magistrate’s court, none of 15 court rulings sampled were based on the law.

The law is there to protect people such as Chibanja and Christina, but is it being used?

Over the years, Malawi has made progress in enacting laws that seek to address gender-related issues such as violence against women.

Some of the laws are the Prevention of    Domestic Violence Act, Wills and Inheritance Act, Gender Equality Act as well as the Child Care, Protection and Justice Act.

Wolrec executive director Maggie Banda said most of the laws are progressive because they aim at protecting victims of violence against women and girls.

“However, the implementation of such laws remains a challenge due to various reasons. We carried out a study in November 2013 which revealed that as much as service providers may have knowledge of the existence of gender-related laws, they do not have much knowledge with regard to the actual provisions of the law,” said Banda.

She said the study found that the lack of knowledge affects delivery of justice because the people who are supposed to dispense justice are not grounded in the knowledge they need to pass judgements.

In January 2014, the NGO Gender Coordination Network (NGO-GCN) petitioned the Judiciary, faulting magistrate’s courts for meting out lenient sentences on cases involving gender-based violence and sexual abuse.

“Some courts are not effectively applying legislations such as the Prevention of Domestic Act (2006), the Deceased Estates (Wills and Inheritance Amendment) Act (2011), the Child Care, Justice and Protection Act (2010) and the Gender Equality Act (2013).

“Trivialisation of cases of defilement and rape, including other gender-based violence cases by some quarters of the Judiciary, results in victims getting unsatisfactory redress,” reads part of the petition.

What should be done?

In its 2013 report titled Accessing Justice: Models, Strategies and best Practices on Women’s Empowerment, the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO) argued that empowering women to claim their rights makes them better equipped to bring about change in their communities.

IDLO director general Irene Khan said it is crucial that women get justice, no matter where they seek it.

“In a world where plural justice systems are a reality and show every sign of enduring, the best answer is, therefore, to empower women so that they may themselves bring about the change to which they aspire.

“Systems, whether formal or informal, must become equally responsive to women’s demand for justice. Women’s empowerment is fundamental to creating a culture of justice,” said Khan.

Banda said thorough and adequate dissemination of information on gender-related laws is key to advancing justice for women.

“Most stakeholders do not have the capacity to apply gender-related laws; as a result, they prefer to use old laws which they are familiar with,” she said.