Court in Malawi slaps sexual offender with long jail sentence

MULANJE,Malawi - A court in Malawi slaps a sexual offender with long jail sentence in order to send deterrence messages to would-be offenders. Our correspondent reports Sexual offenders in Malawi - who believe that a chicken has the right to ‘eat’ its own eggs - are reaping the bitter fruits of their sexual debauchery. The latest to learn the lesson that defilement may be sweet for few minutes but is consequences are painful is 22-year-old man Alison Saiti from southern Malawi’s border district of Mulanje. A magistrate court jailed Saiti on Tuesday for 14 years for defiling his 10-year-old stepdaughter and infecting her with HIV. Saiti met her fate after the step-daughter revealed to mother that she was a victim of defilement every time she (the mother) was away. Following a complaint by the victim's mother, Saiti was arrested and a medical report confirmed that the girl was indeed defiled and infected by HIV.

Sexual offenders

The incident in Mulanje is not an isolated case. More than 1,300 men were arrested for defilement and incest crimes in 2015 in Malawi according to  a senior police officer Nicholas Gondwa “We are arresting many sexual offenders because of superstition-related incest and defilement cases. The rate of sexual offences is scary,” said Gondwa Early this year a 36-year-old sexual offender in Lilongwe, Malawi was arrested for charges of incest after his 17-year-old daughter became pregnant and reported him to her mother.

Superstitious fools

Some sexual crimes are committed due to superstitious beliefs in the poverty-stricken nation where many believe rituals including having sex with minors and relations is a passport to riches. “Malawi is a very superstitious nation… Malawian – educated or uneducated, well-travelled or not are superstitious. The only difference between those in the village and those living in air-conditioned houses in cities, is that the former believes in witchcraft while the latter believes in demons… This is why prophets are mushrooming everywhere and I have to say they are also doing quite well in urban area – both in brainwashing and making money,” observed columnist Sellina Nkowani, a writer with local paper, The Nation Africans are easily conned because of their long held superstitions according to Kendulo Panguenye, the chairperson of the International Traditional Medicine Council of Malawi. “Some of our superstitions simply demonstrate that we are hopeless idiots. How can sleeping with your own daughter make you rich?” he quizzes. He adds: “We should know that charms to success are innovation, creativity, hard work and determination. Nothing else. If the quacks and the soothsayers knew charms for easy riches, why don’t they become millionaires themselves in the first place?” According to Pangaunye, a genuine herbalist spends time in researching and administering plants with medicinal ingredients to the sick. I don’t understand why up to now people get conned by poverty-stricken witch doctors. Why are we that stupid?” said Kendulo.

African problem

A columnist based in Ghana Isaac Ofori says superstitions are partly responsible for underdevelopment in Africa. “Superstition has prevented many people from coming out from poverty on Africa continent… The veil of superstition is so huge that an African dream of deliverance is long fetched. A continent of bloodshed, juju, and witchcraft and wizardly, occultism, ancestral worship, gods and enchantments is full of darkness,” he once observed. According to Ofori, Africa [should] look forward to the time where she will be purged completely from these superstitious stains which have crippled its development and uplifting. “Everywhere on the Africa has some level of superstitious stains which continue to darken the minds of people and prevent any critical or natural thinking as well as scientific thinking which is the main force behind the development of many countries of the world,” concludes Ofori. He expounded his views in a piece titled “The Veil of Superstition – Africa’s Burden of Darkness