Having sex with a child is not only thriving but deepening its roots by the day in Malawian society. The menace enjoys uncanny boom mainly around the girl child. However, the abominable deed, as WANANGWA CHAFULUMIRA writes, has a myriad of justice, psychological and health concerns.
Tears well up in her eyes as she recounts her ordeal in front of a Times crew.
The 15-year-old girl stoops her head as she relives her red stains around her genitalia.
The stains signified her lost innocence.
The incident happened steps away from a home she worked for as a house helper in Madzi Asatsi Village in Traditional Authority Kachindamoto in Dedza.
Her parents divorced while she was very young.
That is all she knows.
Her biological father does not support her.
Her mother got married to a man who does not want her any near the family.
She wants to keep her identity a secret in this story. So we will call her Alipo.
“I went to a grocery shop to buy mandasi (flitters) for my breakfast,” Alipo says as she wipes two rivulets of tears running down her cheeks.
On her way back, she found the suspect, a then teacher at Mtandamula Primary School in the same area, dusting his motorcycle at his house.
Seizing the opportunity that many community members were attending a funeral service within the village, he summoned her.
“He asked me to be doing piecework of drawing water for him. He said he will be giving me K2 000 for every day. I told him I did not want. He insisted, saying he struggles with house chores as he and his wife got separated,” she says.
In one swoop, the man seized Alipo by her hand, closed her mouth with his palm, dragged her into his house, rammed her to the ground, undressed her and forced his manhood into her.
The man left her bleeding profusely after the cruel act.
“I stormed out of the house crying in pain. People who were nearby came to see why I was crying,” she says.
Some motorcycle taxi operators rushed to inform her employer and her aunt who lives in the nearby village about the incident.
At this point, the suspect had fled the scene.
After getting a police statement from Mtakataka Police Post and seeking medical care at Mua Mission Hospital, it was confirmed that the suspect had sex with Alipo.
She was referred to Salima District Hospital for further medical attention.
“I had difficulties in walking. I had painful sores around my genitalia,” she says.
Her aunt says Alipo spent a week in hospital battling pains and a bad odour from her private parts before she recovered and got discharged.
Alipo’s incident, though tragic, is not an isolated one. There have been more disturbing cases.
In what looked like a repeat performance, Alinane, also not her real name, was tainted by a man from a neighbouring house.
She is barely 13.
She is doing the dishes in the kitchen when she hears footsteps from outside towards the door.
Her mother is away to work at a health facility and she thinks she is alone in the living quarters.
She does not scare easily; so, she stands up to investigate.
She turns to the door and there, at the entrance, she sees a silhouette of a man.
“I stopped dead in my tracks. I froze for a second,” Alinane says.
Then, the form crystalised into a suspected Community Savings and Investment Promotion’s employee in her Kafulama Village in the same Kachindamoto’s area.
“I knew right away who he was and why he was here,” she continues.
“He grabbed me and forced himself on me. I did not scream because he repeatedly said he would kill me should I let anyone know about the deed,” she says.
Now 19, Alinane says this forced sex was the second act in separate days but in the same compound. The other incident happened in 2016 when she was in Standard Five at Mua Primary School.
Her life depended on her silence and she kept it for months.
On the third attempt, Alinane took courage and told her friend that the man had twice before taken from her what was not his.
“I was playing with friends. My mother was away to work. He passed by and hid in a maize garden behind our house. Then, he beckoned to me to follow him into the garden. I refused and told my friend about everything,” she says.
Her mother says upon her return from work, Alinane’s friend confided in her about the incidents.
“I was traumatised and furious. When I asked her, she was at first cagey but she later opened up. She said the suspect, who was my neighbour and married, told her he would kill her should she tell it to anyone,” she says.
She says she instantly reported the matter to police and took her to hospital for medical attention.
Medical examination at Mua Mission Hospital confirmed the suspect had had sex with Alinane.
The suspect got transferred to somewhere in Mtakataka and later to a destination they do not know.
Malawi is passing through an unusual time as this spine-tingling menace has become an almost daily occurrence.
From data perspective, sexual assault on children is on the decrease around the country but a number of cases hug media headlines daily.
Police say from January to March this year, they recorded 371 cases of sex with a child while they recorded 398 in 2022 and 631 in 2023 in the same period.
Police add that from January to March this year, the country recorded 70 cases of rape while it recorded 67 in 2022 and 51 in 2021.
Mtakataka Community-based Organisations Network chairperson Maxwell Mwalabu says girls and women in his area continue to face gender-based violence in multiple forms.
“Every day, vulnerable children fall prey to predators who seek to fulfil their twisted desires at the expense of innocent children. The unfortunate part is most of these girls conceal the matter because they are threatened.
“Again, when they do, most of the cases are not concluded and it is a major worry to us and concerned parents,” Mwalabu says.
Dedza District Social Welfare Officer Edward Chisanga ignored our efforts to seek his say on the matter.
But Dedza Police public relations officer Beatrice Jefita says police are aware of the cases.
“We are still investigating,” Jefita says.
And like so many other instances, justice is yet to be served in the cases of Alipo and Alinane.
“We are waiting for the day the case will make progress. However, it pains me that the future of my daughter was distorted,” Alinane’s mother says.
Alipo’s aunt says it is heart-wrenching to keep on waiting for justice on her niece’s case.
“The incident affected her. Since then, she regularly behaves strangely. I suspect her biological father collected money from the suspect to conceal his whereabouts,” she says.
Alipo’s case is a typical response to people subjected to immense trauma during childhood, Chiwoza Bandawe, a clinical psychologist at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, explains.
“One of the indicators that a girl has been sexually exploited is shock, a confusion about what has happened. The younger the girl, the more confused she will become. Because of the trust they have in adults, once they are sexually exploited, it totally distorts the way they understand the world.
“Their behaviour will change, their academic performance might be affected. They have regressive behaviours whereby a 10-year-old might behave as a three-year-old such as wetting their bed. These things might linger for a while,” Bandawe says.
Alipo and Alinane’s story is one that repeats itself in the country a thousand times over.
The two girls are suffering while picking pieces of their stolen innocence.
Their lives forever changed and their future permanently deformed.
But the suspects get to live freely and perhaps ready to pounce on another innocent girl.
