Mozambique - Struggles for Women - Violence - Poverty - Rights

The Struggle Continues for Mozambique Women
Ruth Ansah Ayisi

MAPUTO, Jan 10 (IPS) - The contradictions in Maria’s life are typical of many women in Mozambique.

On one level the 33-year-old is advancing. She is able to attend night school to gain the education that the 16-year-long civil war interrupted when she was a child. She has learnt to sew to complement the money she makes as a trader. She is trying to take the necessary steps to ‘‘live positively’’ after finding out that she has contracted HIV.

Here lies the rub. She has been unable to negotiate safer sex with her husband, who is also HIV positive. She has also not been able to leave him, despite the fact that he beats her regularly and threatens their children with violence. The youngest is only 10 years old.

‘‘He hits me with whatever he lays his hands on,’’ says Maria, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. ‘‘He once chased me with a knife but in the end did not stab me. Once he hit me against a wall.’’ She shows a scar on her arm.

‘‘Some nights our children have to run to the neighbours to get help. And the other day he said he would lock the children in our home and burn it down.’’ Maria is visibly upset.
Her husband becomes violent whenever she refuses sex or when she asks him to use a condom. ‘‘He beats me when I insist too much, so I have just given up trying to use them.’’ This is dangerous because re-infection with the HI-virus has the potential of speeding up the progression of HIV/AIDS in someone’s body.

The advances that women have made in Mozambique in recent years have not given Maria basic security in her own home. This is the case for many women in Mozambique, despite its constitution endorsing equal rights for women and men.

Women also have a relatively high level of representation in parliament at over 30 percent. And the country has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

In 2002, the parliament passed the Family Law after much debate around the country. ‘‘Although it did not give us everything we need, one of the most important gains was that it has given protection for the many women who are married under customary law,’’ says Graca Julio of the Women’s Forum, a network of women’s organisations.

‘‘Now, if customary marriages break up, those women have the same rights as women who have been married under civil law.’’

The Women’s Forum has been promoting women’s rights since 2004. The members of the forum have designed a basic manual in local languages for community leaders to understand the issues better. The forum also conducts training sessions.

According to Julio the forum is seeing the positive effects of its work. ‘‘In Marraquene in the southern province of Maputo the community court now favours the widow and the children in inheritance disputes.

‘‘There has been a case of a childless widow who was married under customary law. Following her husband’s death his family took her assets. The widow took the case to the community court and the community leaders, who had participated in the training, ordered the family members to return the assets to her, which they did.’’

But Julio is aware of the major obstacles to achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, especially goal three on gender equality. She identifies HIV/AIDS, domestic violence and poverty as the big challenges.

Although Mozambique has reduced poverty levels dramatically, women have not benefited as much as men. A recently published analysis by the United Nations Children’s Fund shows that poverty in male-headed households in Mozambique has been reduced by 26 percent -- from about 70 percent in 1996/97 to 52 percent in 2002/03.

In female-headed households the gains have been noticeably slimmer as poverty dropped by only four percent -- from about 67 to 63 percent over the same period. A third of all Mozambican households are headed by women.

In the households headed by men, women have little negotiating power, as Maria’s story shows. This lack of power is fuelling the HIV/AIDS pandemic as women are frequently blocked from making basic decisions about their own sexuality.

This is reflected in the infection rates. Women constitute 58 percent of the 1.6 million Mozambicans living with HIV/AIDS. Not only are more women infected but, as in the rest of Southern Africa, they are also more affected. Women still carry most of the burden of caring for the sick.

This is one of the reasons why girls orphaned by HIV/AIDS drop out of school before their male siblings.

Despite the government’s efforts to eliminate gender disparities in access to education, the proportion of girls attending schools compared to boys remains lower in the rural areas. Only 48 percent of girls attend primary schools, compared to 57 percent of boys.

This is even more of a concern because over 70 percent of the population lives in the rural areas. The same gender disparity is not seen in urban areas.

Regarding violence against women, as many as 34 percent of women reported being assaulted in a 2004 study by the Ministry of Women and Social Action. The perpetrator was usually a husband or a close relative. Ten percent said they had suffered some form of sexual abuse.

Again there is a distinction between rural and urban areas. Women in the rural areas reported higher levels of violence than women in towns and cities.

What keeps Maria trapped is poverty. ‘‘I would leave my husband if I could afford it,’’ she says. ‘‘I would love to live without fear with my children.’’