More legal protection required for gender violence survivors

When Beatrice, 32, took her husband to court for violence against her and their six-year-old daughter, it meant the breakdown of her family. Her husband was sentenced to three years in prison for beating Beatrice and their daughter, but then her lawyer, Maria Orlanda Lampiao, discovered that he had also raped the girl. "Their daughter was limping badly, and we later discovered that she had contracted syphilis," the lawyer told IRIN. The husband has now been released from prison and Beatrice is in hiding with her youngest daughter, aged four, while the elder daughter is living with nuns. "Her mother is not working and cannot afford to keep the older daughter; she also lives in fear of her husband finding her - there is no place for them to go as a family. This case is typical and shows how fragile our structures are for dealing with domestic violence." Lampiao spoke to IRIN just before participating in a five-country videoconference to review progress made by members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on eradicating violence against women and children. South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mauritius and Mozambique took part. The conference on Human Rights Day, at the end of the 'Sixteen Days of Activism on Gender Violence' campaign, was organised by the British Council and the Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) Network, an umbrella body of individuals and organisations that promote gender in and through the media. The key findings of a survey of 12 countries, conducted by GEMSA, were also announced. The survey commented that, "while gender violence is now firmly on the political agenda in Southern Africa, laws, services and resources to address the scourge are patchy, and the link between gender violence and HIV/AIDS is not being adequately addressed. Attention to new threats, like sex trafficking, is growing, but is barely acknowledged in policies and laws." Namibia is the only country to have ratified the African Union Protocol on African and Women's Rights. Like most countries, Mozambique has few laws that address gender issues. For example, Mozambique is among eight SADC countries which have not yet passed a domestic violence act, and it does not have a sexual offences act. Lampiao, a member of the NGO, Mozambican Women Lawyers' Association (MWLA), told IRIN that although people were becoming more vocal against gender violence, support services were extremely weak in Mozambique. MWLA was using radio programmes to sensitise and explain the existing legal processes against gender violence. Cases of gender violence had been brought to the court under the normal penal code, but this was not satisfactory, she said. "We want a domestic violence act because it would cover more areas of gender violence, such as economic violence and abandonment, and the act will give the judge more flexibility in sentencing," she explained. Every day MWLA dispenses advice to people, mostly women and children, who have often suffered severe physical violence or have been thrown out of their homes. Lampiao said the Mozambican authorities should prioritise the establishment of shelters around the country for those who suffered gender violence. There are currently only two refuges in Mozambique, one of which is based in the Central Hospital in the capital, Maputo, and run by a local NGO called "Kulaya", meaning "advice" in the local Changana language. But living conditions in the shelter were dismal, claimed Lampiao. "There are few beds and hygiene is precarious - they cannot afford the products to clean the toilets." There are no quick solutions for Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries, where about 14.9 percent of the country's population is living with HIV/AIDS. The epidemic has hit women and young girls especially hard and adds a new dimension to gender violence: children like Beatrice's daughter run a high chance of being infected by HIV. One of the panelists at the video conference, Salome Moine, chairwoman of the Women's Parliamentary Caucus and member of the ruling FRELIMO party, told participants that although shelters are not widely available, government had set up special departments in police stations, manned by specially trained police officers, to assist those suffering from gender violence. Mozambique is expected to pass the domestic violence bill next year, which Lampiao said would be a major step in the right direction. Existing legislation is also being reviewed to protect the rights of children. "The next priority should be to provide shelters around the country for those who survive violence and to help them acquire a skill to make them self-sufficient," said Lampiao. "Then mothers and children will not get split up, like Beatrice and her daughters."