Patriarchy and Poverty: a Deadly Combination for African Women
Madagascar. Three years ago, a young woman named Kenia was sexually assaulted by her uncle, Justin Betombo. A report was filed, medical records secured and a confession signed by Betombo, but all of those files submitted to the prosecutor are now missing. The prosecutor in charge says that she has no record or memory of the evidence. “Real instances of child rape are rare,” she said. “Very often the parents are poor and they use this procedure to get money.” Another young African girl slips through the cracks of a corrupt justice system (read entire story here).
Actually statistics show that instances of child rape are very common in Madagascar, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone and other African countries. In 2005, a survey by the World Health Organization reported that more than one in five Namibian women reported being sexually abused before the age of 15. There are two common threads among these countries, where rates of child abuse are so high.
One is poverty and the inherited legacy of violence internalized by an oppressed and impoverished people. But ultimately, said Rachel Jewkes, an expert on sexual violence with South Africa’s Medical Research Council, “the vast gap between the status of men and boys on one hand and women and girls on the other explains much of the climate of relative tolerance.” This also explains growing rates of AIDS cases among Black women, the victims of mentally and physically diseased men. We will hear more about gender inequity in Africa in our January interview with leading Ghanaian poet and playwright, Ama Ata Aidoo.
On World AIDS day, let us challenge this deadly disease by condemning violence against women, condemning poverty and neocolonialism and condemning patriarchy - the institutions which allow AIDS to disproportionately ravage Black communities, internationally.
Published on December 1, 2006 at 12:17 pm.
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