Domestic Violence A Brutal Reality For Many Tanzanian Women
8 Mar 2009
8 Mar 2009
When her husband Simon stopped coming home some nights, Donatha Massawe tried to handle it with grace. She was so gripped with worry that she`d stay up all night watching TV and waiting for him, but when he would stroll in the next morning, she held her tongue.
``I didn`t ask him where he had been. I was worried it would start a fight,`` she said.
When he ridiculed her for her petty trade business she also kept quiet, even though the 80,000/- she could earn in a month of selling fabric dwarfed the 3,400/- he brought home from his job at the Tanzania Revenue Authority.
Then, nine years into their marriage and while Donatha was pregnant with their third child, Simon became violent.
The first time, about 10 years ago, he beat her delicate cheekbones until they swelled and left scars all over her slight torso, where he had dug his fingernails into her when throwing her across the room.
The beatings were humiliating and painful, but Donatha endured them. She and her husband were both Chagga people, and Chaggas didn`t get divorced, she said.
She had thought of leaving without a whisper after some of the worst beatings, one of which put her in the hospital, but she was sure it would cause her children more suffering.
At that point Donatha could no longer assume that her husband was `out with the boys` when he didn`t come home.
She had heard from all over Njombe, the small town in Iringa region where they had built a home, that Simon was having a longstanding affair with their housegirl.
Over time, she walked in on her husband with the housegirl, and with other female workers at the guesthouse the couple had started running together.
Each time, things followed a distinct pattern. She would catch him in the act, he would grovel, she would buckle and things would go back to normal until the next incident.
But when her children witnessed one of Simon’s sexual indiscretions, Donatha became enraged and confronted him.
Though the slew of affairs had taken its toll on their relationship, Donatha was then three months pregnant with their fifth child.
Simon again begged for her forgiveness, and he beckoned for her to come to Dar es Salaam where he had moved for his job.
He had told her she should go to the hospital for antenatal care, and once again she thought they were turning a corner in the relationship.
He seemed concerned for her and the wellbeing of the fetus.
She was admitted to a Mikocheni hospital for what she thought would be tests and an ultrasound, but instead she was put under anesthesia and doctors performed an abortion on her without her consent.
When she was regaining consciousness, still confused and in a pain-induced haze, her husband was sitting by her side. ``You think you`re so clever,`` he said to her in a threatening hush. ``Let’s see how clever you are now.``
With the wounds of the procedure still fresh, the couple had one last falling out, in which Simon falsely told their family members she was a prostitute and HIV-positive.
Donatha moved home to Moshi for a year, before finally summoning the courage to kick Simon out of the house he had been renting in Dar es Salaam with his latest mistress.
He agreed to leave the house, but took everything with him. She thought things were finally over. Then he came back for her children.
That’s when Donatha reached her limit; she was done being silent. A friend referred her to the Women’s Legal Aid Centre (WLAC) in the Kinondoni area of Dar es Salaam, where they gave her free legal counseling on her rights as a wife, mother and citizen.
With WLAC`s help, Donatha filed a civil suit against her husband, and though the suit is ongoing, she has already gotten rights to the couple`s two homes in Dar es Salaam and Njombe, as well as custody of two of her children.
Donatha, who is now 39 but looks much older, is safe and healthy, but she is nonetheless a fragile shell of the enterprising young woman she once was.
``I`ve lost a lot of time. And now I’m tired,`` she said, crossing her arms to her chest as if she were bracing for a bitter cold.
Donatha`s story - for all its cruelty, severity and startling monotony - is all too common in Tanzania, where a majority of women polled by the World Health Organisation said they consider violence to be a `normal` part of their lives.
“Most of the clients who come to WLAC, we find they have been dealing with these issues for so long,`` said Mary Njau, one of WLAC`s lawyers.
``If a woman comes here it means she has been tolerating violence for a very long time, five or seven years, and she can’t take it anymore.``
Women`s organisations have unanimously said that domestic violence is on the rise in the country, even though - or worse, perhaps because - more women are becoming aware of their rights.
The most recent figures available, from the WHO`s 2005 Multi-country Study on Women`s Health and Domestic Violence against Women, showed that 41 percent of women interviewed in Dar es Salaam, and 56 percent of women in Mbeya, had ever experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner. In both sites, 60 percent of those women had never sought help from any formal service or authority.
Organisations like WLAC and the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) have attributed the rise in domestic violence to growing poverty and changing gender roles, among other things.
When a society is already marginalised politically or economically, the men in that community may feel more desperate to assert their masculinity, said Peter Mshikiwa, a lawyer working with TAWLA.
And as women gain ground economically and professionally, many men express their feeling threatened by becoming violent.
WLAC and TAWLA both said the number of clients they work with each year has been on the rise in recent years and is now well into the thousands.
But both organisations focus solely on providing legal counsel for civil trials involving property, child custody and alimony, and they do not help women to press criminal charges against partners who physically or sexually assault them.
Criminal cases are between the United Republic of Tanzania and the defendant, Mshikiwa said, so any such case would be handled by a public prosecutor, who he said would likely be a police officer and most often male.
He said he didn`t know how many domestic violence cases had actually gone to court, but he didn’t think there were many.
``From my experience, the number of men who have been charged with domestic violence is very low, even in areas where awareness of women`s rights is high,`` Mshikiwa said.
The police force, which has historically been criticised for being soft on domestic abuse cases, has been trying in the last few years to grow more sensitive to women`s issues across the board.
For its Gender-Based Violence Desk, which has been operating on a trial basis in Dar es Salaam since November but will officially launch this week, the police have trained both male and female officers to deal with domestic violence cases at each of the city’s 18 police stations.
According to the desk`s secretary, Alice Mapunda, women now file gender-based violence reports in separate rooms instead of in the station`s lobby, and they can also elect to deal with female officers exclusively.
Nationwide, they began incorporating gender-based violence into the curriculum for police training late last year, but Mapunda said it will take time for that training to reach every corner of the country.
``Just imagine you have 365 police stations but only 18 have been trained to deal with gender-based violence,`` she said. ``So you can see there is work to be done which is very heavy.``
Police in rural areas have especially been notorious for brushing domestic violence under the rug, often because they say it is not a crime but a `private matter`.
Many women fear the police will do nothing, or merely ask for a bribe from the batterer, if they file a report, but Mapunda said the force is committed to changing its practices, whether its officers like it or not.
``We as police officers we have to change according to the policy, the environment, the laws,`` she said. ``If something has been declared to be illegal, you have to go along with it.``
Though Mapunda said there are plans to expand the gender-based violence desks throughout the country, their concentration in Dar es Salaam speaks to a generally disproportionate distribution of resources in Tanzania.
Maimunda Kanyamala, the director of Kivulini, a Mwanza-based women`s rights group, says though resources and education is more accessible in urban areas, spousal abuse is far more common in rural areas, where police stations are sparse, cultural traditions may be more ingrained and women may feel more reluctant to report abuse because of stigma or lack of money.
``For us who live in the rural areas where there are no police stations, what should we do?`` Kanyamala asked. ``Reporting means you have to move from point A to point B - and that means money.``
Women living in rural areas will pay between 2,000/- and 3,000/- for a bicycle to the nearest police station, or sometimes they will choose to pay even more to take a bus to a further station for fear that local police will collude with their husbands, according to Kivulini`s research.
For those women who report abuse to local ``street leaders`` to go through the ward tribunal system or to send a report on to the police, they typically have to pay a bribe of 1,000/- to 5,000/- to even get their report filed, since street leaders are voluntary, unpaid positions, Kanyamala said.
``They have to pay all over just to get justice,`` she said.
For women who are unlikely to have any income whatsoever, that 1,000/- bribe can be the difference between reporting a beating, or handling it `gracefully`, like Donatha did.
Though Kivulini does provide legal counseling for battered women, the organisation focuses on the prevention of gender-based violence.
They have only recently begun networking with schools, police and local religious centres, a step that Kanyamala said has made a big difference.
Most encouraging, she said, has been the inclusion of men in their counseling, an inclusion that is also in line with the theme of today`s International Women`s Day, which encourages cooperation between men and women to promote the rights of women and girls.
Mshikiwa, the TAWLA lawyer, said he thought incorporating men into women`s organisations was integral to addressing the root causes of gender-based violence, and the only way to truly encourage social responsibility throughout the country.
``Most of the women`s programmes in Tanzania involve women only,`` Mshikiwa said. ``You cannot combat domestic violence if you do not include men. It’s a question of education.
In most cases men are not aware of the legal framework. If you start explaining the legal consequences of domestic violence, men always calm down.``
With the promise of the future there is also the crushing realisation that for some, it is just too late to rectify the past.
Donatha says she has felt the pain of her invasive abortion for years after the procedure, and she still doesn`t know if she can have sexual intercourse now.
And most heartbreaking for her, her three daughters and her one son, she says her husband was the first and only man she ever loved, and the last she will ever trust.
``I didn`t ask him where he had been. I was worried it would start a fight,`` she said.
When he ridiculed her for her petty trade business she also kept quiet, even though the 80,000/- she could earn in a month of selling fabric dwarfed the 3,400/- he brought home from his job at the Tanzania Revenue Authority.
Then, nine years into their marriage and while Donatha was pregnant with their third child, Simon became violent.
The first time, about 10 years ago, he beat her delicate cheekbones until they swelled and left scars all over her slight torso, where he had dug his fingernails into her when throwing her across the room.
The beatings were humiliating and painful, but Donatha endured them. She and her husband were both Chagga people, and Chaggas didn`t get divorced, she said.
She had thought of leaving without a whisper after some of the worst beatings, one of which put her in the hospital, but she was sure it would cause her children more suffering.
At that point Donatha could no longer assume that her husband was `out with the boys` when he didn`t come home.
She had heard from all over Njombe, the small town in Iringa region where they had built a home, that Simon was having a longstanding affair with their housegirl.
Over time, she walked in on her husband with the housegirl, and with other female workers at the guesthouse the couple had started running together.
Each time, things followed a distinct pattern. She would catch him in the act, he would grovel, she would buckle and things would go back to normal until the next incident.
But when her children witnessed one of Simon’s sexual indiscretions, Donatha became enraged and confronted him.
Though the slew of affairs had taken its toll on their relationship, Donatha was then three months pregnant with their fifth child.
Simon again begged for her forgiveness, and he beckoned for her to come to Dar es Salaam where he had moved for his job.
He had told her she should go to the hospital for antenatal care, and once again she thought they were turning a corner in the relationship.
He seemed concerned for her and the wellbeing of the fetus.
She was admitted to a Mikocheni hospital for what she thought would be tests and an ultrasound, but instead she was put under anesthesia and doctors performed an abortion on her without her consent.
When she was regaining consciousness, still confused and in a pain-induced haze, her husband was sitting by her side. ``You think you`re so clever,`` he said to her in a threatening hush. ``Let’s see how clever you are now.``
With the wounds of the procedure still fresh, the couple had one last falling out, in which Simon falsely told their family members she was a prostitute and HIV-positive.
Donatha moved home to Moshi for a year, before finally summoning the courage to kick Simon out of the house he had been renting in Dar es Salaam with his latest mistress.
He agreed to leave the house, but took everything with him. She thought things were finally over. Then he came back for her children.
That’s when Donatha reached her limit; she was done being silent. A friend referred her to the Women’s Legal Aid Centre (WLAC) in the Kinondoni area of Dar es Salaam, where they gave her free legal counseling on her rights as a wife, mother and citizen.
With WLAC`s help, Donatha filed a civil suit against her husband, and though the suit is ongoing, she has already gotten rights to the couple`s two homes in Dar es Salaam and Njombe, as well as custody of two of her children.
Donatha, who is now 39 but looks much older, is safe and healthy, but she is nonetheless a fragile shell of the enterprising young woman she once was.
``I`ve lost a lot of time. And now I’m tired,`` she said, crossing her arms to her chest as if she were bracing for a bitter cold.
Donatha`s story - for all its cruelty, severity and startling monotony - is all too common in Tanzania, where a majority of women polled by the World Health Organisation said they consider violence to be a `normal` part of their lives.
“Most of the clients who come to WLAC, we find they have been dealing with these issues for so long,`` said Mary Njau, one of WLAC`s lawyers.
``If a woman comes here it means she has been tolerating violence for a very long time, five or seven years, and she can’t take it anymore.``
Women`s organisations have unanimously said that domestic violence is on the rise in the country, even though - or worse, perhaps because - more women are becoming aware of their rights.
The most recent figures available, from the WHO`s 2005 Multi-country Study on Women`s Health and Domestic Violence against Women, showed that 41 percent of women interviewed in Dar es Salaam, and 56 percent of women in Mbeya, had ever experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner. In both sites, 60 percent of those women had never sought help from any formal service or authority.
Organisations like WLAC and the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) have attributed the rise in domestic violence to growing poverty and changing gender roles, among other things.
When a society is already marginalised politically or economically, the men in that community may feel more desperate to assert their masculinity, said Peter Mshikiwa, a lawyer working with TAWLA.
And as women gain ground economically and professionally, many men express their feeling threatened by becoming violent.
WLAC and TAWLA both said the number of clients they work with each year has been on the rise in recent years and is now well into the thousands.
But both organisations focus solely on providing legal counsel for civil trials involving property, child custody and alimony, and they do not help women to press criminal charges against partners who physically or sexually assault them.
Criminal cases are between the United Republic of Tanzania and the defendant, Mshikiwa said, so any such case would be handled by a public prosecutor, who he said would likely be a police officer and most often male.
He said he didn`t know how many domestic violence cases had actually gone to court, but he didn’t think there were many.
``From my experience, the number of men who have been charged with domestic violence is very low, even in areas where awareness of women`s rights is high,`` Mshikiwa said.
The police force, which has historically been criticised for being soft on domestic abuse cases, has been trying in the last few years to grow more sensitive to women`s issues across the board.
For its Gender-Based Violence Desk, which has been operating on a trial basis in Dar es Salaam since November but will officially launch this week, the police have trained both male and female officers to deal with domestic violence cases at each of the city’s 18 police stations.
According to the desk`s secretary, Alice Mapunda, women now file gender-based violence reports in separate rooms instead of in the station`s lobby, and they can also elect to deal with female officers exclusively.
Nationwide, they began incorporating gender-based violence into the curriculum for police training late last year, but Mapunda said it will take time for that training to reach every corner of the country.
``Just imagine you have 365 police stations but only 18 have been trained to deal with gender-based violence,`` she said. ``So you can see there is work to be done which is very heavy.``
Police in rural areas have especially been notorious for brushing domestic violence under the rug, often because they say it is not a crime but a `private matter`.
Many women fear the police will do nothing, or merely ask for a bribe from the batterer, if they file a report, but Mapunda said the force is committed to changing its practices, whether its officers like it or not.
``We as police officers we have to change according to the policy, the environment, the laws,`` she said. ``If something has been declared to be illegal, you have to go along with it.``
Though Mapunda said there are plans to expand the gender-based violence desks throughout the country, their concentration in Dar es Salaam speaks to a generally disproportionate distribution of resources in Tanzania.
Maimunda Kanyamala, the director of Kivulini, a Mwanza-based women`s rights group, says though resources and education is more accessible in urban areas, spousal abuse is far more common in rural areas, where police stations are sparse, cultural traditions may be more ingrained and women may feel more reluctant to report abuse because of stigma or lack of money.
``For us who live in the rural areas where there are no police stations, what should we do?`` Kanyamala asked. ``Reporting means you have to move from point A to point B - and that means money.``
Women living in rural areas will pay between 2,000/- and 3,000/- for a bicycle to the nearest police station, or sometimes they will choose to pay even more to take a bus to a further station for fear that local police will collude with their husbands, according to Kivulini`s research.
For those women who report abuse to local ``street leaders`` to go through the ward tribunal system or to send a report on to the police, they typically have to pay a bribe of 1,000/- to 5,000/- to even get their report filed, since street leaders are voluntary, unpaid positions, Kanyamala said.
``They have to pay all over just to get justice,`` she said.
For women who are unlikely to have any income whatsoever, that 1,000/- bribe can be the difference between reporting a beating, or handling it `gracefully`, like Donatha did.
Though Kivulini does provide legal counseling for battered women, the organisation focuses on the prevention of gender-based violence.
They have only recently begun networking with schools, police and local religious centres, a step that Kanyamala said has made a big difference.
Most encouraging, she said, has been the inclusion of men in their counseling, an inclusion that is also in line with the theme of today`s International Women`s Day, which encourages cooperation between men and women to promote the rights of women and girls.
Mshikiwa, the TAWLA lawyer, said he thought incorporating men into women`s organisations was integral to addressing the root causes of gender-based violence, and the only way to truly encourage social responsibility throughout the country.
``Most of the women`s programmes in Tanzania involve women only,`` Mshikiwa said. ``You cannot combat domestic violence if you do not include men. It’s a question of education.
In most cases men are not aware of the legal framework. If you start explaining the legal consequences of domestic violence, men always calm down.``
With the promise of the future there is also the crushing realisation that for some, it is just too late to rectify the past.
Donatha says she has felt the pain of her invasive abortion for years after the procedure, and she still doesn`t know if she can have sexual intercourse now.
And most heartbreaking for her, her three daughters and her one son, she says her husband was the first and only man she ever loved, and the last she will ever trust.
Source: http://ippmedia.com/
