The title of the post is taken from a T-shirt that I wear often---and I always....always...have women come up to me to tell me that they love it. I got it when I participated in an anti-violence against women march on International Women's Day in Swaziland. This year, International Women’s Day falls on Saturday March 8th and my thoughts are once again with women who are surviving sexual and gender based violence around the globe. But mostly my thoughts, and my heart, are with the women right here in my own Maputo neighborhood.
Sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) is widespread and it comes in many forms: physical, sexual, psychological and emotional. The United Nations defines SGBV as “any act that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to a person based on that person’s gender, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.” On the African continent SGBV often takes the form of: sexual assault, child marriage, intimate partner violence, dowry (bride price) deaths , honor killings, female genital cutting/mutilation, and during times of humanitarian crisis, such as war or natural disasters, rape is often used as a weapon to punish or force women into submission. Also during times of humanitarian crisis many women and their girl children become forced participants of transactional sex work in order to meet their economic needs.
In various places around the world women experience SGBV and believe that part of being a woman is to resign oneself to the suffering of abuse. While working in a domestic violence unit in the DC Superior Court I was one of the few Spanish speaking in-take legal officers and so many of my clients were recently arrived Latina immigrants. On many occasions women would seek assistance for physical abuse but after speaking with them I would discover that they were experiencing sexual violence in the form of marital rape. After counseling them on SGBV many women would look at me confused and say “But I am a wife, I have to have sex with my husband whenever he wants it”---that was almost ten years ago and sadly, I believe that not much has changed in developing nations or in the U.S. for that matter.
While working on SGBV I have seen many forms of violence perpetrated against women and children: children with massive burns over their bodies for stealing a coin from their mother’s wallet; young girls entering into initiation rites as young as 8 or 9 (where they have sex with a man as old as 70); a two year old girl being sexually molested by her 70 year old father while also being physically abused by her mother who would drip boiling water on her thighs every morning; a woman tied to a tree and burned alive by her husband for the most minor grievance, such as burning her husband’s dinner; and in the U.S., an immigrant Indian man killed his wife by slamming her head repeatedly on the floor----the neighbors thought that during the prior 6 months before he murdered her that he was practicing basketball.
In the U.S. we have a justice system that does not always respond to the needs of women experiencing SGBV, but the structure is there and there are many women’s and children’s advocates trying to make it better so that women and children can get the treatment, protection and legal remedies they deserve. Unfortunately, my time working in international justice systems has shown me that these systems do not meet the needs of women and children experiencing SGBV. Of course, that does not mean action is not being taken—there are many development entities taking steps to eradicate disparities in addressing SGBV in developing nation’s justice systems—hence the reason as a development consultant working on justice issues, I know what justice systems can and can’t do at the moment in protecting women from their perpetrators.
While living in rural Mozambique, the women I saw experiencing SGBV did not go to the authorities: it is here where I witnessed more than any place I have lived, women being resigned to the fate of being used and abused. When women issued complaints at the police station, the perpetrator would be brought in and he would be “spoken” to and told not to do it again or in most cases, he paid the police officer on duty to make the charge go away. In both situations, he would return to his wife to continue the abuse. In such a situation, I would think that I too would be resigned to believe that this is the fate of being a woman.
Living in Maputo there is not much difference except that here if the abuse is loud enough and visibly cruel enough, then neighbors will issue a complaint against the perpetrator on behalf of the woman. In most cases complaints on SGBV get issued by neighbors as many women experiencing violence are financially dependent on their intimate partners/husbands and often cannot go back to their familial homes—thus they do not file a complaint in fear of losing their sole provider. Most women cannot return to their families because their family may not have the money to financially support the woman and her children. Or in other cases there may be tensions between a new step-mother and the woman, who is the daughter of a previous wife. While in some cases it is because her lobolo (bride price) has been paid and the family has spent the money and cannot return it, therefore, she is forced to stay with her perpetrator.
In 2012 one of the first people I met in Maputo was a beautiful young woman who invited me to her 21st birthday party at her family’s house. During the party her boyfriend stood up and spoke about what a wonderful woman she was and that he was going to marry her. Thereafter, when I would run into them, all seemed well, but little by little her smile was less wide when she was with him and when she was alone-she always seemed to be a bit worried. But B and me didn’t comment as we knew she moved from a house with pretty good economic conditions to now living on her own with her partner, so it would take some time to adjust to living with less luxuries. But about two weeks ago, I saw her in the distance and waved. She had her hair closely cut and I yelled across the street to tell her that I liked the new style. Again, she just smiled at me. It kills me that she didn’t say anything to us at that moment. Or that I was not closer to her to see that on top of her head were about 10 stitches on the huge cut that her partner gave her when he smashed her with a beer bottle. Two days later she was in jail for allegedly pouring hot oil on his genitals.
When I went to the police station where she was being held, the officer refused to let us in but after some sweet talking by B, I got in but he didn’t. When I walked into the station “cell”, she was lying on the floor, and that is where I saw for the first time the huge cut on her head. She was also handcuffed to a metal folding chair. She was squeezed in between some planks of wood and a motorcycle—so it wasn’t a cell it was the station’s supply room (of course I didn’t have my camera that day!) We were told she was handcuffed to stop her from fleeing. In fact what they were doing was doubly incarcerating her which is against Mozambican law. But they were also punishing her as an incentive to make the family negotiate expeditiously for her release particularly since she is four-five months pregnant: they had to make her life pretty miserable and uncomfortable. I was able to find her some free legal assistance in case the police actually transferred her to have her case placed on a docket for trial—which under Mozambican law they should have done within the first 24 hours of arresting her or the Monday after arrest if it occurs on a Friday, which, of course, it just so happen it did (without notice of the charges against her—they saw her walking by the station and picked her up).
She was released this week—so basically she has been sitting in a closet handcuffed to a chair for a week. Thus, the family “decided” to take took the negotiating route. As part of the negotiation process she had to apologize for what she did to the Aunt, the complainant, of her partner. I’m sure along with the apology was an envelope of cash. When I asked one of her family members, “What about the perpetrator’s apology to her?” The response I received was, “Well he is in more serious condition than she is.” But she told me that she did not pour oil on him, it splashed on him. The police state that her partner was sleeping on his back when she poured the oil on him. But at this point in the case (arrest) it is not for the police to play judge and executioner but for them to do their jobs properly: arrest, process paperwork and transfer the suspect to the designated facility for holding.
Folks in the neighborhood have already played the role of judge and executioner too as many condemn the young woman and believe that she poured the oil on her partner’s genitals with intent to kill or disfigure and that it was not an accident as she claims. All say that she should not have poured it on his genitals as that was “too, too bad.” When B and I started to defend the woman in the hypothetical situation that she did do it with intent, by saying that after years of abuse, she was driven to protect herself---all others in our conversation could not understand what we were saying. They could only see the individual act and not the accumulated years of abuse and mistreatment and what effect it could have on a woman psychologically.
In Mozambique and Malawi battered women’s syndrome as a legal defense to homicide or assault and battery does not exist. However, 90% of the incarcerated women that I met while working in Malawi on access for justice issues, told me they were there for killing their husbands and that it did it because they felt that if they did not do it, they felt their husbands would have beaten them to death, if not that day, one day in the future. When I asked them if they told this to the judge during the trial they all answered that they did not understand what was happening during the trial and thought it best not to speak at all. However, silence during trial signals acquiescence, and as a result many women plead guilty without ever having their voices heard or their cases adequately presented as none of them could afford a lawyer.
In Maputo, I have contacted a few of the NGOs supposedly working on SGBV and/or monitoring police brutality and procedure several times, but either the phone number is disconnected or my email queries go unanswered. My next step is to go in person and ask what we as a community can do to tackle the violence that is being experienced by women and children here and to make police more responsive to their needs. In the meantime B (the best feminist I know) talks to women who we think are experiencing domestic violence at home---and educates them on their rights and he offers our help in mediating disputes that couples may be having with one another (which we have done a couple of times now). At this point, the best we can do is to prevent situations from escalating to severe physical harm or death.
I hope on this International Women’s Day that sexual and gender based violence is not something that we discuss only on March 8th, but that we continue the conversation everyday: whether it is telling our daughters that they don’t need to be Cinderella and wait for a Prince Charming to rescue her, or refraining from calling a woman a bitch or a whore, or if we know of someone experiencing domestic violence thinking about how we can intervene, even if it is just slipping a piece of paper into her hand with the number of a helpline. Anything we can do to stop the persistent and pervasive cycle of violence is one step closer to fully cherishing the women that we are: daughters, mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, partners, lovers, homemakers, professionals, tower blocks and best of all…… friends. On this upcoming International Women’s Day: I wish my Sister Friends around the world all the love, respect, dignity and happiness that you deserve!
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