Health expert warns Swaziland women might contract cancer from unregulated contraceptives

Women in Swaziland (eSwatini) are using unregulated family planning products that might cause cancer, a leading sexual health expert warned.

Bongani Msibi, Acting Executive Director of Family Life Association of Swaziland (FLAS), said unregulated products were available in the kingdom that often came without instructions for their safe use. The products were designed to prevent pregnancy.

Msibi told a parliamentary forum in Manzini misuse of the products increased the risk of cervical or breast cancer.

Msibi said the government provided regulated family planning products for free, but some people still used unregulated ones.

Women’s sexual health is a controversial topic in Swaziland where abortion is illegal but pills that purport to induce abortions are openly on sale. In February 2020 a woman was sentenced to 30 years in jail with the option of an E45,000 (US$2,700) fine for selling Cytotec pills which induced abortion.

Under the Swazi Constitution abortion is illegal in Swaziland except under strict circumstances, including where a mother’s life is in danger.

Because abortions are illegal in Swaziland it is difficult to say accurately how many are performed in the kingdom. However, in August 2018 the Times of Swaziland reported that every month, nurses at the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital in Manzini attended more than 100 cases of young women who had committed illegal abortions.

The IRIN news agency, quoting the FLAS, reported that in October 2012 more than 1,000 women were treated for abortion-related complications at a single clinic in Swaziland. Many of the deaths were the result of haemorrhaging, while others resulted from the patient’s delay in seeking medical treatment for other complications stemming from illegal terminations.

In November 2012 the IRIN reported that 16 percent of all women deaths in the government hospital in Mbabane that year were the result of botched abortions. It said that this figure was only those cases that were reported, there were certainly other deaths unreported.

In December 2018 the Swazi Observer reported the number of illegal ‘backstreet’ abortions taking place in Swaziland was ‘escalating’ because social media had made it easier to obtain abortion pills.

See also

Death of Swaziland schoolgirl after illegal abortion highlights suffering of women in kingdom

https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2019/04/death-of-swaziland-schoolgirl-after.html

 

U.S. halts funding to Swaziland NGO as anti-abortion policy bites

https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2018/08/us-halts-funding-to-swaziland-ngo-as.html

Swaziland college principal reveals role abortions play in lives of his students

https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2019/08/swaziland-college-principal-reveals.html

GOVT ‘DELIBERATELY STARVING PEOPLE’

Starving people in Swaziland are being denied food by the government because it is punishing the kingdom’s members of parliament for passing a vote of no confidence against it, local and international media have claimed.

Food intended to feed destitute families, especially those headed by single women with children, has been deliberately left to rot in government warehouses, they said. One Swazi newspaper said, ‘[T]here could be a deliberate ploy at cabinet to systematically starve the people’.

Swaziland has a food crisis and in recent years up to a half of Swaziland’s 1.1 million population have relied on donated food to stop from starving.

Now, a scandal is being uncovered in Swaziland that points to the government deliberately withholding food from starving people, in the hope they will blame their local members of parliament for the problem.

The international news agency IRIN reported the problem is being blamed on ‘bad blood’ between members of parliament (MPs) and members of King Mswati III’s cabinet. This is after the House of Assembly passed a no-confidence vote in October 2012 against Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini, who is both a relative and appointee of the king. The no-confidence vote was later reversed.

The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, in an editorial comment said, ‘[T]here could be a deliberate ploy at cabinet to systematically starve the people’. 

IRIN reported, ‘Although the country has institutions resembling those in democracies, Swaziland's parliamentarians do not enact legislation; rather, they approve policies of the king’s appointed cabinet.

‘But MPs are still responsible to their constituents - voter registration began a few days ago for this year’s scheduled elections, although a poll date has yet to be announced. Political parties remain banned.

‘Some observers believe the disruption of food supplies was meant as a lesson for the MPs.

‘Aaron Simelane, a Swaziland-based political commentator, told IRIN, “MPs are considered community development agents by the people who vote ... Swazis want their MPs to bring roads, jobs and aid to their communities, but MPs have no power to do any of these things. [The] cabinet has this power.

‘“The people do not know this, and when things aren’t done they blame MPs, who promise to deliver this and that to get elected. By withholding food aid, [the] cabinet is teaching MPs a lesson about power.”’

Local media in Swaziland reported that ‘hundreds of 50kg bags of beans, mealie-meal and boxes of cooking oil’ had been left to rot at the government central warehouse in Matsapha. 

IRIN said the spoiled food included, ‘15,000kg of the staple maize meal, 25,000kg of beans and 600 cartons of vegetable oil.’

The Swazi Observer in an editorial comment stated, ‘[T]ons of donated staples like maize, beans and cooking oil were deliberately being allowed to rot at a government granary in Matsapha, while starving people had to contend with the pangs of hunger out there.

‘We may be forced to agree with the honourables [members of parliament], who are now claiming there could be a deliberate ploy at cabinet to systematically starve the people and obliterate them from the face of their army worm-ravaged areas.’

The Observer went on to say, ‘Or much sinister still, it is to alienate the present crop of MPs from their constituents, so they cannot be voted back to parliament, if that was to happen.

‘Are the hungry people being used to hit back at the MPs for their still-born vote of no confidence last year? When things happen in this manner, one starts to believe even the most far-fetched theories, which is why government should avoid such embarrassing situations at all costs.

‘That people are hungry out there is a given. Even those who send money home from towns have drastically reduced the amounts they send as a result of high costs of living and the triple-taxation they are forced to shoulder.’

The Swazi Government which is hand-picked by King Mswati, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, caused a scandal in March this year when it was revealed it had sold maize donated forhungry people by Japan, for about US$3 million.

The money was put in a special account at the Central Bank of Swaziland. The Government has yet to publicly reveal exactly what the money was spent on. 

IRIN reported the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Swaziland provides food assistance at more than 1,500 neighbourhood care points, more than 200 secondary schools and 12 health facilities. In 2012, the WFP supply chain reached 327,000 people.

In 2007, more than half of the kingdom’s 1.1 population required food aid, IRIN said.

See also

SALE OF FOOD AID BY GOVT ‘NOT ANOMALY’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/sale-of-food-aid-by-govt-not-anomaly.html

GOVT SELLS MAIZE DONATED FOR HUNGRY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/govt-sells-maize-donated-for-hungry.html

GOVT-DONATED MAIZE SCANDAL WON’T DIE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/govt-donated-maize-scandal-wont-die.html

FEAR OF MASS HUNGER IN SWAZILAND

Most of Swaziland’s 1.1 million people will need foreign food aid to fend off hunger this year.

And, the feudal system in Swaziland where chiefs rule is a major blame for this, according to a report by the IRIN news agency.

IRIN reports that poor rains this year will lead to bad crops. ‘The country will slide back into the need for food assistance for a majority of the population,’ Thembumenzi Dube, an Agriculture Ministry economist, told IRIN.

Rains failed during the October (2011) planting season in the usually productive central middleveld, as well as the generally drought-prone eastern and southern regions. The virtual absence of irrigation systems makes the country all the more dependent on the right amount of rain falling at the right time.

In the 1970s Swaziland was a net exporter of food, but since the early 1990s the country has been dependent on donor assistance to greater or lesser degrees. In 2010 about one in 10 Swazis depended on food aid.

‘The last three to four years had already shown signs of steadily increasing staple food crop production but this season will be bad compared to last year. Of course in some cases farmers can still grow other food crops such as sweet potatoes and sugar beans but the risk remains high with limited rainfall,’ Dube told IRIN.

About two thirds or more of the population rely on subsistence farming, although agriculture accounts for only 7.9 percent of gross domestic product.

‘The problem is that 70 percent of the population live as peasant farmers on communal Swazi Nation Land [SNL] which is operated under a system of chiefs. They practice the farming methods of their ancestors. No irrigation and little by way of fertilizer. They just drop in seeds and hope for rain. The failure to modernize will have its effects felt again this year,’ Charles Ndwandwe, a manager at a food distribution centre in the central Manzini region, told IRIN.

About 10 percent of the country is arable, and less than 1 percent of this land is used for export crops like pineapples and sugar cane.

The remaining arable land lies on SNL, where small-scale farmers depend on rain-fed agriculture. People live on the land without secure tenure or title deeds, and chiefs can evict people at will.

Without title deeds, SNL farmers cannot use their land as collateral to secure loans for irrigation equipment or other land improvements. Land reform proposals call for Swazis to be ‘owners [of land] rather than squatters’ with the aim of driving forward agricultural modernization.

However, land reform faces stiff political opposition: King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, imposes his authority through the chiefs’ system, and providing secure land tenure would undermine his rule, according to analysts.

To read the full report from IRIN, click here.

OPPOSITION TO ARMY SPENDING GROWS

Swaziland spends 4.7 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on paying, equipping and barracking the 3,000 soldiers in its army, and now parliament has passed a US$8 million supplementary budget for the force, provoking a rare public reaction in questioning the role or even the need for an army in view of the deepening economic crisis, the IRIN news agency reports.

The consistently food insecure kingdom with its predominantly agrarian society, where about 70 percent of the 1.02 million population lives on $2 or less a day, allocates 4 percent of government spending to agriculture, while 17 percent is spent on the security services.

Only the budgets for general administration and education receive a larger amount of money from the donor-dependent government, while health gets a 10 percent share. Swaziland has the world's highest HIV/AIDS prevalence, with one in four people aged 15-49 infected with the disease.

2011 has seen unprecedented public protests against the rule of sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III, sparked by an economic crisis that has led to severe cuts in social services, such as education, pensions and support for orphans and vulnerable children.

Military spending as a ratio to GDP ranks it 18th in the world, according to the CIA World Fact Book. An estimated $40.5 million is allocated annually to the Umbutfo Swaziland Defence Force (USDF), excluding supplemental budget requests.

Parliament is forbidden to debate military budgets, and details of specific military spending are cited as a state security matter.

Vincent Dlamini, secretary general of the National Public Servants and Allied Workers Union (NAPSAWU), told IRIN, “The country is not at war and so there is no need to spend 4.7 percent of GDP on the army. Government is complaining about the huge wage bill but is keeping more people in the army.”

Joyce Ndwandwe, a member of the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress, Swaziland’s oldest political party, which is banned, told IRIN: “When I need a soldier for my protection, where is one? They are all at the king’s palaces - they only come out when the workers strike.”

The formation of an army coincided with the banning of political parties in 1973, after Mswati’s father, King Sobhuza, decreed the country’s independence constitution invalid and assumed all executive, legislative and judicial powers for himself and his descendants. Political opposition parties were outlawed, as were public demonstrations.

To read the full IRIN report, click here.

NOW, SWAZI SOCIAL SERVICES IN CRISIS

Swaziland’s parliamentarians are questioning the purpose of a social safety net covering children, the elderly and the disabled. One dismissed it as little more than a public relations exercise, but in the teetering economy the recipients often depend on these small grants and pensions for survival, the IRIN news agency reports.

“Why do we continue with this assistance [to orphans and vulnerable children, (OVC), pensions and school fees for primary school students]? It seems as if we are trying to impress some people here,” said parliamentarian Patrick Gamedze in the assembly on 13 October. His colleague, Nichodemus Mashwama, also called for an end to government payments for primary school students, although this is stipulated in the constitution.

Other MPs backed Mashwama’s call for a constitutional amendment to abolish government payments aimed at achieving universal primary education. Some questioned why MPs should be held accountable for school fees, old age and disability pensions, and grants for OVC when government had no money to pay for them.

To read the full report from IRIN, click here.

See also

CASH CRISIS HITS SWAZI HEALTH CARE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/10/cash-crisis-hits-swazi-health-care_18.html

CASH CUTS HIT SWAZI AIDS ORPHANS

IRIN

15 September 2011

SOURCE

SWAZILAND: Financial crisis forces schools to close

MBABANE, 15 September 2011 (IRIN) - The vast majority of Swaziland’s primary and secondary public schools have not opened for the new term, after the government failed to settle the outstanding education fees of US$10.8 million for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).

About 200,000 children, or nearly one fifth of the country’s 1.1 million people, are classified as orphaned or vulnerable. Swaziland has the world's highest prevalence of HIV - 26.1 percent. One in four Swazis aged 15-49 is HIV-positive and 70 percent of people live below the poverty line.

The government of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, is legally bound to pay OVC fees, which have been outstanding since January 2011.

“Last week government assured us that when schools opened for the third term, [13 September] money for the outstanding fees would be paid for the OVC. This did not happen. The schools have no money to operate,” Sibongile Mazibuko, president of the country’s largest teachers’ union, the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), told local media.

In a mobile phone text message to about 9,000 union members on 13 September, SNAT said: “Since government has failed to deposit money for OVCs as per agreement, teachers should return and remain at home until [we] meet Thursday [15 September] for a protest march.”

The Ministry of Education told IRIN the teachers’ union did not have the authority to close schools, and the ministry has ordered children to attend school through broadcasts on government radio stations.

Swaziland’s deepening economic crisis saw neighbouring South Africa recently agree to a R2.4 billion (US$370 million) loan to prevent an economic meltdown, after international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), declined to bail out Swaziland for, among other reasons, its failure to reduce its public sector wage bill, which is seen as far too large for the country’s size. South Africa has not yet paid the loan.

To read the full report from IRIN, click here.

See also

NO CASH SO SWAZI SCHOOLS SHUT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/no-cash-so-swazi-schools-shut.html