WUNRN
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.’’
================================================================
To
leave the list, send your request by email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.