LUSAKA, ZAMBIA – Mary Chileshe, 24, says her husband beats her almost every day because she can’t bear children. And she says she deserves it.
“There is nothing wrong with him beating me because we have been married for five years and a few months and I still have not given him children,” she says, wiping tears from her face. “I think I deserve the beatings.”
She says her husband, Chimba Chileshe, 30, a renowned carpenter, also beats her for small mistakes and even for things she doesn’t do.
“He beats me even when he finds me talking on the phone and accuses me of having affairs,” she says.
She says people have advised her to report her husband to the police, but she refuses.
“I cannot take him to the police,” she says. “I love him, and he loves me. He is my husband.”
In Zambia, a culture of silence portrays spousal violence as acceptable, making daily abuse and underreporting common. Counselors and nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, have been working to sensitize couples and communities in hopes of making cases less prevalent. Meanwhile, Parliament has been working on an anti-gender-based violence bill that would provide victims with more protection.
More than half of Zambian women who have ever been married have suffered physical abuse since age 15, according to the latest Zambia Demographic and Health Survey, ZDHS, taken in 2007 and released in 2009. About 40 percent of them said it happened often or sometimes during the year before the survey, and 93 percent named former or current husbands, partners or boyfriends as the perpetrators.
Marital violence – violence perpetuated by partners in a marital union – can be physical, sexual, emotional, psychological or economic, according to the ZDHS. More than two-thirds of wives surveyed said their husbands became jealous or angry if they talked to other men and insisted on knowing where they were at all times. A lesser percentage said husbands frequently accused them of being unfaithful, didn’t permit them to spend time with female friends and didn’t trust them with money.
Wife battery is common in Zambian compounds such as Ngombe, located in a suburb of Lusaka, the capital, says Peter Nondo, a local policeman.
“We get about six or so cases of wife battering in just one day, and there is surely a reason to be concerned because some women are suffering severe cruelty,” he says.
He says another reason for concern is that not all cases are reported.
Although 46 percent of women who have suffered physical or sexual violence have sought help, almost just as many, 41 percent, have never sought help nor told anyone, according to the ZDHS. For those who have told someone or sought help, it usually stays within the family, as only 7 percent said they reported it to the police and less than 1 percent said they saw a doctor.
Many attribute underreporting to the culture of silence in Zambia regarding gender-based violence and domestic abuse. Tradition and culture not only make it taboo to speak about violence that occurs inside the home, but they also teach women that they deserve the abuse.
More than 60 percent of surveyed women said that she deserved to be beaten by her husband for at least one of the following reasons: burning food, refusing to have sex with him, arguing with him, going out without telling him or neglecting the children, according to the ZDHS.
Iris Phiri, a counselor and founder of the Zambia National Traditional Counselors Association, an organization that promotes pre-marriage counseling, attributes women’s acceptance of wife beating to the various social and cultural processes in Zambia and other sub-Saharan countries that tend to make women feel inferior.
Namuchama Mushabati, legal officer at Women and Law in Southern Africa-Zambia, part of a regional organization that works toward improving women’s legal status, attributed wife battery and other forms of gender-based violence in Zambia to unequal power relations between men and women. She says that Zambian women need to be empowered in order to reduce cases of gender-based violence.
Several NGOs are working to empower women and reduce gender-based violence through a variety of activities, such as radio programs, educational workshops, school discussions and support groups.
Amos Mwale, executive director of Youth Vision Zambia, an NGO dedicated to providing sexual and reproductive health information and services to youth, says that sensitization activities need to be carried out continually in Zambian communities, compounds and rural areas in order to break the culture of silence that surrounds gender-based violence.
“People in communities should be sensitized on gender-based violence so that they are aware of the various forms and effects of gender-based violence and are able to talk openly about gender-based violence in community support groups and other sessions,” Mwale says.
Mwale says that Youth Vision Zambia trains and educates traditional counselors on gender matters, such as wife battery and other forms of gender-based violence, such as sexual violence. He says the Zambian government and other NGOs should do the same.
“Traditional counselors from all parts of the country must be educated on gender-based violence because these people interact directly with young women who are about to get married and those who have reached adulthood,” Mwale says.
Phiri says the government needs to become involved to achieve this.
“I am calling upon our gender minister to work with traditional counselors in all parts of the country in order to reduce violence, such as wife battery and other forms of gender-based violence, such as sexual and mental abuse,” Phiri says.
Mushabati says that social welfare organizations also play a critical role in dealing with gender-based violence by providing social security for victims, especially women and children. But she says that more needs to be done.
Mushabati says that current Zambian legislation doesn’t adequately address gender-based violence. But she expressed optimism that a pending anti-gender-based violence bill would improve this.
Parliament is currently debating an anti-gender-based violence bill, which was presented last year and passed its second reading in February 2011. The bill aims to protect victims of gender-based violence by, among other measures, providing safe spaces for girls and women to live and protection orders for gender-based violence survivors, according to Sarah Sayifwanda, minister of gender and women in development.
Until then, women like Chileshe will continue not only to receive abuse, but also to think they deserve it.
“It is OK for him to beat me because I am unable to give him children,” Chileshe says in between sobs.
