WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR
Creccom Technical Programmes Officer, Janet Mwangomba, said incest and any other form of sexual violence against girl-children and women need to be rooted out, saying they are detrimental to the victims’ health.
Mwangomba blamed the problems on social and cultural practices such as kusasa fumbi [cleansing], fisi [hyena practice where a man would be hired to sleep with a wife whose husband is deemed barren] so that she could bear children, among others.
She warned parents against incest, saying they are ruining their
children’s future.
“Most victims of incest drown their past in alcohol or drugs. They may have borderline personality disorder which is characterized by sudden changes in temperament.
“They’re also at risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety,
depression and phobias. Some become hypersexual as adults; while others are frigid and cannot let go with anyone, even a partner who they are beginning to trust in other ways. Their relationships with significant others tend to be dysfunctional because they’ve an underlying sense of mistrust for people, do not feel safe in the world and develop a secret self,” said Mwangomba.
Whatever the symptoms, child incest destroys the innocence of the child and leaves a ruinous future in its wake.
Creccom believes communities should consider abolishing harmful social and cultural practices that predispose women to gender-based violence and HIV and Aids.
“We’re mobilizing the existing structures at the grassroots level to improve women and girl’s empowerment through the abolition of all harmful social and cultural factors. We believe there cannot be a success in the fight against sexual abuse while retaining the practices,” Mwangomba underlined.
While admitting failure to cover the whole district due to limited resources, Mangomba commended the project for changing the mindset of villagers reached with messages.
As she sits down to suckle her five-month baby boy, Maria Charles, not her real name, reflects with regret and betrayal how a stepfather she trusted over 10 years could eventually fall in love with her.
But, as if watching a Nigerian movie of her own, she is now mother to a child whose father is the toddler’s grandfather.
Maria, now approaching her 15th birthday, felt as if in a world of hallucination when her mother approached her one day to persuade her into sex with her stepfather.
“I’ll be out for some days. You’ll assume the role of a wife when am out. Please, entertain him; when he asks for something, don’t refuse him,” said the mother.
Apparently, the mother was going to expect her fourth child at a local clinic.
But what she said did not make sense to the little and unsuspecting child until after nightfall when she realized what her mother meant by “you’ll have to entertain him, don’t refuse!”
“I barely slept when my stepfather came into my room wearing an underpant. He ordered me to undress so he could make love to me,” Maria reminisced when interviewed for this article in December, 2011.
Despite aggressive efforts by government and the civil society organizations aimed at reducing [or indeed] ending sexual and gender-based violence, the problem seems far from extinction.
Defilement, incest and rape continue to make news in the country’s publications as well as radio stations.
Of interest, however, is the fact that men take the most blame as
perpetrators of the violence [against women and girls].
But as Gogo Muliena Miliyoni, 71, of Kayipsa Village, T/A Khwethemule in Thyolo reveals, not all cases of sexual abuse are men-perpetrated.
Miliyoni cites Cecilia Luka, not real name, of Helemani Village in
Thyolo whose mother proposed when she was only 13 that she should be sleeping with her step-father as collateral for their stay at the new home.
“This practice has been a norm in our society as women try to secure their marriages with seemingly promiscuous husbands. For fear of losing their husbands to other women, especially when they notice their hubbies are not satisfied in bed, they coax daughters into sleeping with their fathers for alternative sexual escapades,” she said.
In her parenting book, Keepers of the Children, American writer Laura Ramirez describes incest as a profound form of child abuse and a dual betrayal.
Ramirez says not only is the child's innocence and trust ruptured by the father whom she depends on for her safety and well-being, but the child is abandoned by the mother— the one person in the world who should be willing to do whatever it takes to protect her daughter, even if it means leaving the man she depends on.
Instead of taking care of her daughter's dependency needs, selfish, frightened, deadbeat mom attends to her own, notes Ramirez.
Blame it on ignorance on effects of incest. Certainly, Cecilia’s mother would spare her daughter such arrangement had she known the devastating effects of incest.
Defilement, incest and rape continue to make news in the country’s publications as well as radio stations.
Of interest, however, is the fact that men take the most blame as
perpetrators of the violence [against women and girls].
But as Gogo Muliena Miliyoni, 71, of Kayipsa Village, T/A Khwethemule in Thyolo reveals, not all cases of sexual abuse are men-perpetrated.
Miliyoni cites Cecilia Luka, not real name, of Helemani Village in
Thyolo whose mother proposed when she was only 13 that she should be sleeping with her step-father as collateral for their stay at the new home.
“This practice has been a norm in our society as women try to secure their marriages with seemingly promiscuous husbands. For fear of losing their husbands to other women, especially when they notice their hubbies are not satisfied in bed, they coax daughters into sleeping with their fathers for alternative sexual escapades,” she said.
In her parenting book, Keepers of the Children, American writer Laura Ramirez describes incest as a profound form of child abuse and a dual betrayal.
Ramirez says not only is the child's innocence and trust ruptured by the father whom she depends on for her safety and well-being, but the child is abandoned by the mother— the one person in the world who should be willing to do whatever it takes to protect her daughter, even if it means leaving the man she depends on.
Instead of taking care of her daughter's dependency needs, selfish, frightened, deadbeat mom attends to her own, notes Ramirez.
Blame it on ignorance on effects of incest. Certainly, Cecilia’s mother would spare her daughter such arrangement had she known the devastating effects of incest.
Ramirez says one of the most devastating effects of incest comes from the confusing constellation of feelings it creates: the incest is bad and shameful, but the act itself—the attention, contact and fondling by an attentive parent—may have created sensations that made the child feel good.
“Due to this, a child of incest usually ends up with a strong sense of self-loathing and unworthiness,” she warns.
According to the book, there is such a strong conflict between the
power of the sexual experience and the interruption of the
developmental process that most therapists don't know how to deal with victims of child incest and often make the situation worse because they enable the patient as a full time victim.
This becomes a vicious cycle and a justification for maladaptive behaviour.
“Some of the symptoms of child incest include low self esteem,
depression, developmental autisms (growth is often stunted at the time that the trauma first occurred), eating disorders, fear of doctors and dentists, thoughts that interfere with healthy behaviors and the inability to form intimate relationships with others or be authentic sexually as an adult because they have difficulty sharing intimate thoughts from sexual experience.
“Most victims punish themselves unconsciously because they feel that they are intrinsically unworthy. As adults, they may choose husbands who treat them poorly, careers that do not fulfill them and make other choices that create a lifetime of suffering in big and small ways. Or they may go the other way and their status as a child incest victim may make them feel self-entitled,” Ramirez explains.
Pan African Civic Educators’ Network (PACENET) is one of the organizations working towards the elimination of all forms of sexual and gender-based violence against girls and women in Thyolo district where cases of incest were, until recently, said to on the rise.
According to the book, there is such a strong conflict between the
power of the sexual experience and the interruption of the
developmental process that most therapists don't know how to deal with victims of child incest and often make the situation worse because they enable the patient as a full time victim.
This becomes a vicious cycle and a justification for maladaptive behaviour.
“Some of the symptoms of child incest include low self esteem,
depression, developmental autisms (growth is often stunted at the time that the trauma first occurred), eating disorders, fear of doctors and dentists, thoughts that interfere with healthy behaviors and the inability to form intimate relationships with others or be authentic sexually as an adult because they have difficulty sharing intimate thoughts from sexual experience.
“Most victims punish themselves unconsciously because they feel that they are intrinsically unworthy. As adults, they may choose husbands who treat them poorly, careers that do not fulfill them and make other choices that create a lifetime of suffering in big and small ways. Or they may go the other way and their status as a child incest victim may make them feel self-entitled,” Ramirez explains.
Pan African Civic Educators’ Network (PACENET) is one of the organizations working towards the elimination of all forms of sexual and gender-based violence against girls and women in Thyolo district where cases of incest were, until recently, said to on the rise.
PACENET Paralegal Officer, Martha Mutipa, said her organization has a backlog of registered cases surrounding wives sacrificing their daughters’ future on the altar of their promiscuous spouses’ lust.
PACENET has, however, fallen short of addressing the social ills reported to its offices as it currently has no funding to help fight against the vices through facilitation of judicial redresses.
“Sexually-molested girls feel worthless. When they are in a group of friends they’re always uncomfortable because they think everybody knows about their love affair with their stepparents,” she explained.
“If we had funding, we could go further than mere registration of the cases. Our wish is to offer assistance to the traumatized girls through provision of legal services to those seeking judicial redress,” she added.
Miliyoni explains that, until recently, it was a norm for
“non-performing wives” to transfer their matrimonial responsibilities including conjugal obligations to their daughters.
“They [wives] felt safer sharing a husband with their daughters than life in a polygamous setup,” she stresses.
“non-performing wives” to transfer their matrimonial responsibilities including conjugal obligations to their daughters.
“They [wives] felt safer sharing a husband with their daughters than life in a polygamous setup,” she stresses.
Creative Centre for Community Mobilisation (Creccom) has been implementing a social mobilization campaign on promoting gender equality eliminating harmful social-cultural practices practices in 69 villages from five Traditional Authorities
Khwethemule, Kapichi, Nchilamwela, Thomasi and Bvumbwe in the district.
Khwethemule, Kapichi, Nchilamwela, Thomasi and Bvumbwe in the district.
With support from the Royal Norwegian Embassy (Norad) through Oxfam, Creccom has been working towards rooting out incest; a practice said to be performed as part of ritual for guarding one’s wealth from extinction besides saving one’s marriage.
However, the combined efforts also fell short of completely phasing out trend in a district where the practice hit record the highest in 2010 when some stepfathers were arrested for bearing children with their stepdaughters besides infecting them with the incurable disease, HIV and Aids, according to PACENET.
Creccom Technical Programmes Officer, Janet Mwangomba, said incest and any other form of sexual violence against girl-children and women need to be rooted out, saying they are detrimental to the victims’ health.
Mwangomba blamed the problems on social and cultural practices such as kusasa fumbi [cleansing], fisi [hyena practice where a man would be hired to sleep with a wife whose husband is deemed barren] so that she could bear children, among others.
She warned parents against incest, saying they are ruining their
children’s future.
“Most victims of incest drown their past in alcohol or drugs. They may have borderline personality disorder which is characterized by sudden changes in temperament.
“They’re also at risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety,
depression and phobias. Some become hypersexual as adults; while others are frigid and cannot let go with anyone, even a partner who they are beginning to trust in other ways. Their relationships with significant others tend to be dysfunctional because they’ve an underlying sense of mistrust for people, do not feel safe in the world and develop a secret self,” said Mwangomba.
Whatever the symptoms, child incest destroys the innocence of the child and leaves a ruinous future in its wake.
Creccom believes communities should consider abolishing harmful social and cultural practices that predispose women to gender-based violence and HIV and Aids.
“We’re mobilizing the existing structures at the grassroots level to improve women and girl’s empowerment through the abolition of all harmful social and cultural factors. We believe there cannot be a success in the fight against sexual abuse while retaining the practices,” Mwangomba underlined.
While admitting failure to cover the whole district due to limited resources, Mangomba commended the project for changing the mindset of villagers reached with messages.
In her word of appreciation, Miliyoni commended PACENET and Creccom for sensitizing them on the dangers of the practices in this era of HIV and Aids.
“People have been responding positively to the messages on the need to abolish harmful cultural practices. Some of the parents who used to practice incest have changed their behaviours,” she explained.
“People have been responding positively to the messages on the need to abolish harmful cultural practices. Some of the parents who used to practice incest have changed their behaviours,” she explained.
[END]
