Malawi

By Astrid Zweynert

Oxford, England — The custom in Malawi of sending girls to sexual initiation camps is just as harmful as child marriage and must end if the nation is serious about protecting girls’ rights, a teenager who escaped being a child bride said.
Memory Banda, 18, said the tradition of early sexual initiation, seen as a way of preparing pubescent girls for marriage, was forcing girls to have sex and exposing them to the risk of HIV infection.
Banda said even if girls were not sent to the camps, they may receive a night time visit from an older man.
Known as a “hyena”, the man sent by village elders has sex with girls as young as nine to prepare them for marriage.
“It’s forced sex,” Banda, 18, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview late on Thursday. “Most girls end up being pregnant, and many drop out of school.”
In February, Malawi passed a law banning child marriage and raised the minimum age for girls to marry to 18 in a move hailed by campaigners seeking an end to the practice that affects half of all girls in the country.
Banda’s own sister was married at 11 to a man in his thirties, who had made her pregnant during a sexual initiation.
But Banda escaped her sister’s fate because she was living with an aunt who supported her resistance to early marriage. Banda later joined the Girls Empowerment Network, a Malawi-based charity that for years tried to get lawmakers to end child marriage.
Banda said the priority now was to ensure the new law was enforced and to encourage village leaders to speak out against early sexual initiation.
“The law will make a big difference and have a big impact, but only if we work with communities and girls to address the issues openly,” Banda said on the sidelines of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
Malawi has shown signs of progress already with a growing openness to discussing girls’ sexual rights and dozens of communities in the southern African country banning early sexueyal initiation, she added.
Every year 15 million girls are married as children with one in three girls in the developing world married before they are 18, according to campaign group Girls Not Brides.
Critics say early marriage deprives girls of an education, increases the risk of domestic violence, death or serious injuries if they have babies before their bodies are ready.
Yet the practice persists because some societies view girls as a financial burden, others believe a girl should marry as early as possible to maximise her fertility.
(Reporting by Astrid Zweynert; Editing by Katie Nguyen)

At least 176 people have died in flash floods ravaging Malawi and 200,000 others displaced, Vice President Saulos Chilima said on Friday.

Speaking after visiting worst affected Lower Shire districts of Nsanje and Chikwawa, the vice president said the death toll is feared to rise further as more than 150 people are missing.

“So far, the death toll is at 176 and at least 153 are reported missing. We fear the death toll will rise number because several other people are missing and some parts are in accessible to establish the extent of the damage. Over 200,000 have been displaced after their houses were destroyed by the floods. Malawi is facing a big challenge” Chilima told a news conference.

Devastating floods continue to wreak havoc in most parts of Malawi with some areas being hit with a month’s worth of rain in just 24 hours.

So far government has advised the general public to relocate to higher grounds as disaster officials warned that more heavy rain was expected over the weekend.

“The Government is urging people living in flood prone areas to urgently relocate to upland areas to avoid losing more lives because what the country has witnessed is only the beginning of the onset of rains” warned Principal Secretary for Malawi’s Disaster Management affairs, Paul Chiunguzeni.

According to officials at the Department of Meteorological services, the central and northern part of Malawi should prepare for more heavy rains this coming week.

Earlier this week, the government declared half of the country to be a disaster zone and appealed for help.

By Mike J. Kangwele / Malawi 24

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday issued warrant of arrest for former Malawi president Joyce Banda.

Reports reaching Malawi24 indicate that the warrant of arrest has been issued following evidence compiled from the Close Circuit Television (CCTV) footage of the meeting Joyce Banda had with that the government submitted to the graft bursting body

Government’s submitted the footage to ACB barely a week after Cashgate Chief suspect, Oswald Lutepo implicated Banda on Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) in the Cashgate scandal, saying the former Head of State was the “main beneficiary” of the money he reportedly stole from Government, saying the former president played conduit to the cashgate scandal.

In an interview with Zodiak Broadcasting Station on Friday, November 21, 2014, Lutepo, who is answering theft and money laundering charges related to the cashgate scandal, alleged he was working on instruction from the former President to defraud government.

“[Joyce Banda] used my account as a conduit. I have been to State House several times to deliver the money. If there are CCTVs at the state residences, they will prove me right,” said Lutepo.

In an interview with Malawi24, ACB Public Relation officer, Egrita Ndala, could neither confirm nor deny the allegation that a warrant of arrest has been issued for Joyce Banda.

“We are on strike and that if the warrant has been issued then I am yet to see it. It will need me to consult my bosses to give information but otherwise I cannot since we striking and my friends might stone me if am giving information to the media as that will amount to working while we are on strike. I cannot comment any further” said Ndala.

Currently the ACB has entered the third day of strike and has warned not to continue investigating on the cashgate cases if government does not give them the 70% pay rise.

Malawi24 / By Happy Soko