Zambia: Abuses Against Women Obstruct HIV Treatment

By John Chola

The Zambian government is failing to address the life-threatening obstacles that Zambian women living with HIV face, Human Rights Watch says id in a report released here today.

Gender-based violence and insecure property rights are preventing Zambian women from accessing life-saving antiretroviral treatment.

Nada Ali, researcher in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch and author of the report however acknowledges the significant overall progress made by the Zambian government in scaling up HIV treatment generally.

The 96-page report is entitled, “Hidden in the Mealie Meal: Gender-Based Abuses and Women’s HIV Treatment in Zambia.

The report documents how the government has fallen short of its international legal obligations to combat violence and discrimination against women.

The report details abuses that obstruct women’s ability to start and adhere to HIV treatment regimens, including violence against women and insecure property rights that often force women into poverty and dependent, abusive relationships.

There is domestic violence, property grabbing, and unequal distribution of property upon divorce.

is critical to ensuring that women in Zambia have equal access to antiretroviral medicine” said Nada Ali, researcher in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “Ignoring these abuses will mean that the Zambian government’s goal of universal access to HIV treatment by 2010 will fail.”

The report is based on interviews in Zambia’s Lusaka and Copperbelt provinces with dozens of women living with HIV, HIV counselors and other healthcare providers, government officials, donors, and the police.

The report documents how domestic violence and fear of violence thwarted women’s ability to seek HIV information and testing, discouraged them from disclosing their HIV status to partners, delayed their pursuit of treatment, and caused them to miss clinic appointments and doses of medication.

“I fear to tell my husband [about my HIV status] because I fear that he can shout [at me] and divorce me,” Maria T. (not her real name), 45, told Human Rights Watch. “I hide the medicine, I put it on a plate, add mealie meal, so when he takes the lid off he [does not find the medication]. [When] I take the medicine…I have to make sure that he is outside. That is why I forgot to take medicine four times since I started treatment [seven months ago]. Last year he hit me around the back with his fist.”

The report documents how unequal distribution of property upon divorce and property grabbing by in-laws on the death of a spouse impede women’s HIV treatment. Under the customary laws of many ethnic groups in Zambia, women have lesser property rights than men, and are often left with nothing when widowed or divorced. Fear of losing homes, land, and other property binds some women in abusive marriages. Women who lost property told Human Rights Watch that they struggled to pay for transport to clinics for HIV treatment and counseling and to afford the food they need for treatment to succeed.

In Zambia, 17 percent of the adult population is living with HIV/AIDS, 57 percent of whom are women. Girls and women between ages 14 and 25 are four times more likely to be infected with HIV than their male counterparts. More than half of ever-married women respondents to the 2001-2002 Zambia Demographic and Health Survey (ZDHS) reported having been beaten or abused by their husbands. In November 2006, the Zambia chapter of the Young Women’s Christian Association reported that their shelter recorded 10 cases of rape of adult women in Lusaka every week. The ZDHS also found that a large majority of women (85 percent) and men (69 percent) believed that a husband is justified in beating his wife for at least one reason.

“Unless the Zambian government introduces legal and health system reform and removes the barriers to HIV treatment that women face, gender-based abuses will continue to shatter the lives of countless Zambian women in acute need of antiretroviral treatments and contribute to avoidable losses of health and lives,” said Ali.

Despite the potentially deadly effect of gender-based abuses on women’s HIV treatment, Zambia lacks specific legislation on violence against women. The only two shelters available for female survivors of gender-based violence are civil-society operated, and the Lusaka shelter is filled to capacity. Existing inheritance law is poorly enforced.

Zambia has made great strides in providing free antiretroviral medicine to more than half of those who need it. But the country’s healthcare system is ill-equipped to respond to gender-based violence. Healthcare facilities providing HIV treatment have no systems to detect or respond to abuses such as domestic violence, and there are currently no government protocols on how to address violence in HIV treatment programs. HIV treatment counselors rarely ask about violence in the home, though many said they would do so with proper training and support.

“Healthcare facilities can play a key role in responding to violence and other abuses against women,” said Ali. “Doing so not only helps women access and adhere to HIV treatment, it could also help end the abuse if it were part of a wider strategy to end violence and inequality between women and men. Unfortunately, this is not happening in Zambia.”

Human Rights Watch called on the Zambian government to act urgently to enact and enforce legislation on sexual and gender-based violence and to ensure that the new constitution fully protects women’s rights to equality.

The Zambian government should also establish systems to enable healthcare providers, including HIV treatment providers, to respond to gender-based abuses. At a minimum, the government should ensure that healthcare providers in the HIV sector receive adequate training, clear guidelines, and support to detect and respond to gender-based abuses. Donor agencies should support these reforms as a key component of effective treatment for women with HIV.

SADC won't middle in DRC's new conflicts - Mwanawasa

By John Chola

SADC chairperson Levy Mwanawasa says the regional body will not intervene in

DRC's new wave of conflicts unless asked to do so by the government of that country.

Mwanawasa said at a press conference in Lusaka that it is sad that
conflicts are emerging in the DRC.

He says innocent citizens in the DRC have died and suffered enough hence
need for restoration of peace.

Mwanawasa says it is frustrating to keep hearing that fighting is
worsening in DRC.

He has called for restraint among the warring parties.

He says Zambia in particular will do nothing now unless DRC's Joseph
Kabila indicates willingness to seek help.

Mwanawasa says DRC should stop fighting and direct all energies towards
development.

The peace process in the DRC is on the brink of collapse after rebel
leader, General Laurent Nkunda, says he is willing to integrate his
fighters into the army but refused to surrender or bow to government
ultimatums.

ends//

A tale of deserted Manga

By John Chola

At 26 Margaret Chibwe is already a mother of four. To most women having four children can be a blessing indeed.
One would however wonder whether Chibwe also feels the same.

Chibwe and her four children reside at Kaloko's Village also referred to as Kalimanshi in Chief Chama in Kawambwa district.

For one to reach Chief Chama has to connect from Kawambwa onto a dust road to Chief Mushota we Lombe and either take a canoe across Pambashe River or continue on the dust road for a good three to four hours.

Especially those who cannot hold their breath for almost an hour while sunk into the dug-out canoe they can never enjoy the nature Pambashe river has to offer them while cross the vast valleys also known by the locals as amasapa.

In this case one can then use a vehicle as long as they are prepared to drive around Pambashe river from Mushota We-Lombe heading south-east until they come to a point where they have to cross a small bridge mounted near the source of Pambashe. The Ulufubu Bridge, according to most people in the area, was mounted a long time ago during Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s reign and they say it is no longer reliable.

This method of reaching Chief Chama by road takes too long because it covers a long bush distance before branching off the road heading to Luwingu to the one heading to Chibote Mission.

After leaving Chibote Mission one would count several prominent villages while driving on a one lane bumpy and dust road before reaching Kaloko’s Village where Chibwe and her four toddlers are squatting in what she terms a borrowed grass thatched house.

Chibwe was once married to Francis Chibwe from the same chiefdom but of another village. Like per local tradition after getting married to her namesake, Margaret Chibwe followed her husband to his village where they settled until they were blessed with three children.

Albeit Chibwe encountered some hurdles during her marriage, she accepted them as common in every union of two married persons.

Even whenever she suspected her husband of having extra marital relations with other women she was comfortable that she was at least married and everyone new her for that.

It was all well with Margaret Chibwe until 19^th May 2003 when she received the most surprising news she has ever seen in her life.

Narrating her story in Bemba on the night of 2^nd June 2007 Chibwe said: “My husband left me on 19^th May 2003. He left me for the sole purpose of inheriting a widow of a relative who died.”

To Chibwe’s surprise her husband abandoned her with their three children and concentrated on the inherited widow.

Continuing her narration amid tears Chibwe said: “This is the most difficult life any young women can ever experience and I wish this does not happen to anyone else. My husband never returned to our matrimonial home for three years and I had to fend for my children and myself. It appears he was encouraged by some of his relatives to take care of the inherited widow and not me.”

The slender, short, still younger looking but hard working Chibwe added that she has taken a challenge to clothe her children, grow food for them, build a house for them, educate them should she afford and most of all strive to provide both fatherly and motherly love.

“After staying away from us for three years my husband returned in 2006 and because of people’s intervention I accepted him in. Honestly I was convinced that now he had come back but I was surprise that after he impregnated me for the fourth child you see on me he went back to the inherited woman who warned him never to return to me again,” Chibwe shed tears as she said this.

When she told Francis about he pregnancy he denied it and called her a prostitute.

“His relatives joined him in denouncing and branding me a prostitute. His relatives came one day while it was raining and dragged me and the three children out of our matrimonial house. I carried my children and walked through the rain to a village close to here called Sashi were people offered us a small house to sleep,” Chibwe said.

She said when she entered the borrowed house there she had literally nothing except the little clothes for the children and herself.

Chibwe said life was strange in a new village and with no fields of food to feed her children she lived with great shame.

She received every help offered by anyone and visited people of Kaloko’s village, where she was born and bred who also helped her in various ways.

“It was difficult to find food for the three children while pregnant. I had to work both for food to feed the children and clothes for the new baby. When I sent for my husband that I had a new baby he responded that he had nothing to do with the pregnancy or baby. The new wife also sent a word that if he ever hears that her husband had seen her she would fry him alive,” she said.

Just when Chibwe thought she was fitting into the society at Sashi Village, one evening the owners of the house she borrowed brought her stunning news.

“They came and asked me to leave the house saying that they now what to use it for. Because of the pregnancy and lack of resources I could not manage to build our own house to cushion my family against this new development,” she added.

Because Chibwe had no where to go and stay she stayed in the borrowed house until the owner removed her by force again in the rain.

After being thrown into the cold, Chibwe staggered with her small children and pregnancy across the next village, Kaloko where again a Good Samaritan, Ms Rosaria Chansa well known as Bana Regina, offered her an empty house to stay.

Chibwe and her four children are still staying in this borrowed house at Kaloko’s Village with hope that one day the small baby will get off her back to enable her construct a own house.

“It is sad to lose a mother. I now think that perhaps it is better for a father to die first and not a mother because if my mother was still alive I would have had a bit of dignity left in me,” cried out Chibwe.

Chibwe’s mother died some yeas ago. She has a father and a brother both married and living within Chief Chama’s chiefdom.

In fact Chibwe’s father is the current rightful headman of Kaloko’s Village but he has abandoned his traditional role and shifted to another village where he has inherited a widow.

Mr Kalinima has left the village in the hands of a matrilineal relative whom many villagers consider inappropriate to handle village affairs well.

Chibwe’s father well knows as Mr Kalimina has never bothered to intervene in the marital problems his daughter has been experiencing for years despite being sent for.

She now considers both her father and mother dead and being of no sister or brother.

According to Chibwe the mother to her husband is the architect of the idea that he inherits a dead man’s wife.

It is well know and documented that Zambia is one of the countries in the sub-Saharan Africa grappling with the problem of HIV/AIDS.

The country has also joined efforts aimed at mitigating the impact of this scourge on its citizens.

Various methods have been used to disseminate messages on the adverse impact of the HIV/AIDS and how one can avoid catching the virus.

It has also been realised that traditional leaders holds a strategic position in the country as they are custodians of all traditions, cultural values and preside over millions of the country’s citizens.

This is the reason why most organisations engaged in fighting AIDS have targeted chiefs, village headmen and other traditional leaders to help identify and discard or relax on certain traditions such as widow inheritance.

Widow inheritance is identified as one clear way HIV/AIDS can be passed on to uninfected persons. This is why institutions such as the winded up Zambia Integrated Health Programme (ZIHP) embarked on a robust campaign targeting traditional leaders to identify these traditions and find a way of avoid them.

Chief Chama is one of the traditional leaders in Zambia that have received appropriate knowledge on the danger of wife or husband inheritance – sexual cleansing.

It is however sad that despite such efforts women such as Margaret Chibwe and many other should be still recording as victims of sexual cleansing.

“Sexual cleansing here is going on and it appears village headmen are the ones condoning it because if Chief Chama knew about it he would have stopped it,” added Chansa Chishala, another abandoned mother of five.

Chaishala joined Chibwe in appealing to organisations based in towns to spread their activities of sensitising people especially women on various life serving initiatives to rural communities.

“We want women organisations based in town to come here and help women exploitation. Men here just go to inherited other women and they marry them leaving you with five children suffering with no one to fend for them,” Chishala said.

Chishala and Chibwe knows many other women, some with grandchildren, who are now abandoned by husbands who have inherited other young widows.

“We urge government and organisations helping exploited citizens especially women not to end up in Kawambwa. You must come to Mushota and cross Pambashe river to Chief Chama to see for yourselves what life is made of here,” the two abandoned mothers offered their last appeal.

Mr Joshua Kabaso who lives at Chitala’s Village feared the cases of Chibwe and Chishala will remain rife in the chiefdom as long education remains at its lowest ebb.

“How can we stop the untold exploitation of women particularly the girl child in our area where education is never a priority. Look at that Chitala Primary School which was opened in 1966 but it is like a bush camp. There is one retired teacher manning that school and the situation is common in all schools around Chief Chama’s chiefdom,” lamented Mr Kabaso.

Mr Kabaso said majority grade seven students of Chitala Primary school can not even read the alphabet.

“We cry to the government and other stakeholders to come and help us here in Chief Chama because ignorance is killing us and our children. What unforgivable sin have we committed to all the governments that have existed after Kaunda to deserve such abandonment,” Mr Kabaso asked.

Mr Kabaso believes that without in the absence of a quick action aimed at improving education standards in the area Chama risks remaining in quagmire and cases like that of Chibwe and Chishala will make daily stories.

He said since schools opened this term on 7^th May 2007 pupils of Chitala Primary have had no lesson because there are no teachers.

ends