Taking back our dignity
“Today I felt the true strength of the women’s movement in Malawi. For so long it’s always been about different organisations with similar goals working in isolation, unable to draw from each other’s strengths, or learn from the other’s weaknesses. But on this day, women, girls, rich, poor, Christian and otherwise transcended all manner of real or perceived barriers, going above and beyond politics to raise a unified voice in protest against the abuse of women.” - Rebecca Phwitiko, President YWCA of Malawi.
In Malawi on Tuesday the 17th of January 2012, the country was thrown back 18 years to a pre-democratic era. A time when women were oppressed and their voices suppressed. When women had no freedom of expression and could not wear what they wanted to. On this fateful day tens of women and girls were stripped of their clothing on the streets of the capital Lilongwe, in broad daylight. Their crime? Indecent dress. President Bingu wa Mutharika has said on national radio that women had the right to wear what they want. He denied reports that he had ordered women to stop wearing trousers, and ordered anyone harassing women to be arrested.
Women and girls dressed in trousers or miniskirts were forcefully stripped of their clothing, humiliated at the hands of the men they call their brothers, fathers, uncles, husbands. The next day more attacks on women and girls were reported across the country occurring in Blantyre in the south, Mzuzu in the north as more and more women suffered the worst kind of humiliation. Until 1994, women in the deeply conservative southern African country were banned from wearing trousers or mini-skirts under the autocratic rule of Hastings Banda.
“I wondered what our country is coming to if women are stripped naked on a busy street and people just stand by and let these horrible things happen to our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, to all of us. Suddenly our streets were no longer safe for women” said Rebecca Phwitiko, President- YWCA of Malawi. “But today, women rose in action and the YWCA of Malawi was proud to be part of this powerful gathering of women. The country’s vice president, government ministers, activists came together to show their outrage at such despicable acts.”
During a protest rally in Blantyre held on Friday the 20th of January in response to these attacks, male voices were also heard at the gathering, reflecting on this Rebecca Phwitiko, President YWCA of Malawi shared “having men present was assuring to us that there are still good men out there in our country willing to join the fight”. At the gathering women sang and spoke of taking back their dignity. It was a colorful event, with poetry and presentations on women rights and role within society from a legal, social as well as biblical perspective. Vice-President Joyce Banda, the gender minister, several MPs, church leaders, university lecturers and other activists all attended the protest rally.
The message was clear, women are free to express themselves in whatever form, by wearing what they like and stripping them is against the law.
“I walked out of there feeling as though there was new life in the movement. Even though women have suffered greatly in recent days there is a spring in our step, a confidence born out of knowing we are together in this fight. God bless the women of Malawi, God bless the women of the world” said Rebecca Phwitiko, President YWCA of Malawi.
No further incidents were reported following the protest rally and over 20 arrests were made but the investigation is ongoing. The YWCA of Malawi runs on-going programmes designed to develop awareness and to increase the coping abilities of the communities to the ongoing HIV crises and gender-based violence.
