Women’s rights campaigners in Swaziland appear to
have won a small victory on the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill (SODV).
A report to the Swazi House
of Assembly recommended scrapping four clauses in the Bill that dealt with
incest, unlawful stalking, abduction and flashing.
In the Bill, stalking was
defined as loitering near, contacting a person in anyway; including but not
limited to telephone, mail, fax email or through use of technology. Any
intimidating, harassing or threatening act against a person whether or not
involving violence or a threat of violence was also defined as stalking.
The clause that defined flashing as the exposure of or display of genital organs
and female breasts among others was said to seriously undermine the Swazi tradition
of dressing (imvunulo) and other practices. Each year thousands of
bare-breasted women dance in front of King Mswati III at the Reed Dance.
The clause on incest, described as an act of sexual penetration or attempts with a person’s
offspring or sibling, parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece was
said to be too broad-ranging. The committee report said there were already laws
that covered these offences.
An outcry developed on the
streets and in the pages of the kingdom’s only two daily newspapers when it was
said that the clauses went against traditional Swazi culture.
In an editorial
comment, the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper,
said, ‘If MPs go ahead with this, they ought to be aware that they are just
about to officially brand Swazi culture as a tool to suppress women and girls
in this country. This is not an image we wish for ourselves when the world is
pushing aggressively for gender equality and the protection for women and
girls.’
Within a week the clauses were reinstated. The future of the SODV Bill is unclear since
parliamentary procedure might mean it cannot be discussed again until next
year. The SODV Bill in one form or another has been going through parliament
since 2009.
The controversy has once again highlighted the abuses
that women and girls suffer under Swazi traditional law and custom.
In 2013, a 317-page document called The Indigenous Law and Custom of the
Kingdom of Swaziland (2013) was presented to King Mswati III who rules
Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. It said that under
Swazi Law and Custom a husband can legally rape his wife or his lover.
Under Chapter 7, which addresses offences (emacala) in Swaziland, rape
is said to be committed only if the woman forced is not the man’s wife or
lover.
In 2015, a report
from a US organisation ABCNewspoint stated that Swaziland had the
fourth highest rate of rape in the world. It said there were 77.5 registered
cases of rape among 100,000 people.
Rape and sexual abuse of children is common in Swaziland. In 2008, Unicef
reported that one in three girls in Swaziland were sexually abused, usually by a
family member and often by their own fathers - 75 percent of the perpetrators
of sexual violence were known to the victim.
Many men in Swaziland believed was all right
to rape children if their own wives were not giving them enough
sex. In 2009, men who were interviewed during the making of the State of the Swaziland Population
report said they ‘“salivate” over children wearing skimpy dress codes because
they are sexually starved in their homes.’
In 2009, a study of Swazi cultural practices, funded
by the United Nations Population Fund, found, ‘In Swazi culture, decision
making has traditionally been a male prerogative. Family planning decisions,
therefore, lie with the man.
‘Women report that they have been subjected to
continuous child birth by their husbands or in-laws against their will.’
Another cultural factor is a preference (which is
sometimes made into a demand by in-laws) for a woman to bear a boy child.
Unwanted pregnancies result as the birth of a girl child is immediately
followed by an effort to have a male heir who by traditional law is of the only
sex that can lead a family into its next generation.
So strong are these beliefs, coupled with an antipathy
toward condom use, that AIDS prevention efforts directed at women haven’t made
much headway, according to the report.
In the study, Swazi men strongly defended the practice
of kungena, whereby a widow becomes the wife of the deceased man’s
brother; a practice that health groups say spreads HIV. Swazi men also defended
polygamy as a cultural necessity.
But men also lamented cultural practices they said
could stop the spread of HIV, like kuhlawula, whereby men or boys who
impregnate unmarried women are fined five cows by their community elders, are
no longer enforced.
Several Swazi customs were once in place to ensure
that young people stayed chaste until marriages. At the time, marriages were
usually arranged between families as forms of alliances. Until the traditional
ceremony was completed, young people were not allowed to have sex.
One taboo was the people did not engage in sex outside
their age groups. Boys were subject to ridicule by their contemporaries if they
were known to sleep with older women.
Now, Sugar Daddies and Sugar Mamas are common. It is
not even sexual attraction that draws the youngest of the partners to such
relationships, but the lure of money.
In previous Swazi generations, girls’ sexual debuts
were delayed through such customs as umcwasho, when all the nations’
girls of certain ages were forbidden to engage in sex for designated periods.
See also
IN
SWAZILAND, CHILD RAPE NOT UNUSUAL
TWISTED
SWAZI MEN RAPE CHILDREN
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2009/03/twisted-swazi-men-rape-children.html
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