Sunday, March 15, 2009

Beaten into silence : Battered women in Africa

Africa's highest-ranking female politician has spoken out about the beatings which she said were responsible for her separation from her husband. Specioza Kazibwe, Uganda's former Vice-President, serving from 1994 until 2003, being the first woman in Africa to hold that position said that she had been forced to throw her engineer husband out of their house - which she had built - when she decided enough was enough. Her comments have caused a stir in a society where the subject is largely taboo."Why should I continue staying with a man who beats me?" she was quoted by the New Vision newspaper as telling women legislators. However, the the reaction to Mrs Kazimbwe's action had been varied in Uganda. Mrs Kazibwe should have kept it in the family, said one woman, Diana. "I come from north of the country, where women are told to respect their husbands even if they are abused or beaten up," Diana added."I am happy with the tradition because men are more superior to us and I think, without men, we would not be what we are now."
Men feel free to assault women in public, with complete impunity. A Global Crescendo photographer caught this man beating his pregnant wife. The man in the background looking on appears to be laughing.

Wife beating has traditionally been swept under the social carpet. Few women, including those who are financially independent, have dared to come out and say that they're being battered. It has always happened, everywhere. Often it is accepted as a natural if regrettable part of woman's status as her husband's property. Throughout history women have been subjected to the whims and brutality of their husbands.

Women suffer from violence in every society. In few places, however, is the abuse more entrenched, and accepted, than in sub-Saharan Africa. One in three Nigerian women reported having been physically abused by a male partner, according to the latest study, conducted in 1993. The wife of the deputy governor of a northern Nigerian province told reporters last year that her husband beat her incessantly, in part because she watched television movies.


It is like it is a normal thing for women to be treated by their husbands as punching bags," told Obong Rita Akpan, former Nigerian minister for women's affairs, here. "The Nigerian man thinks that a woman is his inferior. Right from childhood, right from infancy, the boy is preferred to the girl. Even when they marry out of love, they still think the woman is below them and they do whatever they want."

In Zambia, nearly half of women surveyed said a male partner had beaten them, according to a 2004 study financed by the United States - the highest percentage of nine developing nations surveyed on three continents. About 80% of Zambian wives find it acceptable to be beaten by their husbands "as a form of chastisement", according to the Zambia Demographic Health Survey.

A World Health Organization study has found that while more than a third of Namibian women reported enduring physical or sexual abuse by a male partner, often resulting in injury, six in seven victims had either kept it to themselves or confided only in a friend or relative.


In South Africa, researchers for the Medical Research Council estimated last year that a male partner kills a girlfriend or spouse every six hours - the highest mortality rate from domestic violence ever reported, they say. In Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, domestic violence accounts for more than 6 in 10 murder cases in court, a United Nations report concluded last year.


Women's rights activists say that the prevalence of abuse is emblematic of the low status of women in sub-Saharan Africa. Typically less educated, they work longer hours and transport three times as much weight as men, hauling firewood, water and sacks of corn on their heads.


Some societies have the idea that women are foolish and childlike, and need to be beaten to be corrected. In one survey, 44.7 percent of Kenyan women said that men have the right to discipline their wives by beating. The women who are beaten often feel that it is their fault. Even many matrilineal and matrilocal societies accept men beating their wives as correction.

In some Sub-Saharan African countries where wife beating is widely accepted as a response to women's transgressing gender norms, women are More likely than men to justify wife beating. An analysis of Demographic and Health Survey data from in seven Sub-Saharan African countries found that 36-89% of women justified wife beating in at least one of five specified situations such as if she burns the food, neglects the children, argues with him, goes out without telling him or refuses to have sex with. The analysts contend that women's acceptance of wife beating "may be explained only by entrenched social and cultural learning processes that subjugate the position of women in the society, socially and collectively undermine their self-esteem and facilitate romanticisation of the 'ideal' gender role of women."


19 comments:

  1. MEN THAT BEAT THEIR WIVES IN NIGERIA SHOULD BE GIVING A FIVE YEAR PRISON TERM.AND IF THEY DONT CHANGED THEY SHOULD BE PUT BACK IN PRISON.AN I BELIVE MEN AND WOMEN ARE THE SAME.I AGAINST BEATING BEAUFIFUL WOMEN BUT IF THE WOMAN IS UGLY IT OK CAUSE WE NEED BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN OUR SOCIETY AN MAN SHOULD HAVE RESPECT FOR A WOMAN AND MAKE HER FEEL COMFORTABLE

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  2. Thats the dumbest thing I ever hear. If a woman is ugly its ok to beat her? How is that fair what so ever? EVERY woman, no matter beautiful or ugly should be treated equally. No woman should be beaten and every woman should be respected. They make punching bags for a reason so they should use them.

    Us women don't sit here and say that it is ok for women to beat men just bc they are ugly and the handsome ones shouldn't get beaten. Thats so stupid. Every man who beats any women should be imprisoned. Case closed.

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  3. i agree. the woman has done nothing wrong if the reason is because she is ugly, that is an extremely shallow and quite frankly disgusting comment. judging a women entirely on their beauty is common yet awful. all women should be treated equally and no woman deserves to get beaten up by their own husband! someone needs to stop this, it's diabolical. and as for the person who commented first - i'm not quite sure what you're suggesting, you say that all women are equal then you go on to say that ugly women should be beaten up, thats hardly equal is it?

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  4. It is wrong for men to beat women and for what reason. I mean why would you even want to beat someone that is just cruel. I thought America was bad

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  5. Make these guys bend on their knees and shoot them at the back of the head , and let their remains be eaten by vultures and dogs . romi

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  6. What a terrible negative propaganda has been placed here. I am an African woman, born in Nigeria and married to a wonderful black African who shows me all respect and who would fight for me and has never fought against me. I have neither seen nor heard of this behaviour you describe here. It is rare indeed and should be approached as such.

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    1. well, good for you! your the few lucky ones. But don't count on it, you more years to go as his wife. Instead denying, The reality is their are millions of women get beat up. How about helping them to be lucky like you.

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  7. It doesn't matter where you live or where you are from, if a man beats a woman, he should be beat to death! Even if he is Bill Clinton!

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  8. To all men who beat women, often children too, you deserve nothing at all, you are a cowardly disgrace to the human race, you should all be chained up by the ankles and left in a pit to fight each other for survival. It will be nothing but a pleasure to hear your cries for once.

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  9. Cowards, I want to fight them all at once!

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  10. Beating women because they're ugly is just silly. ALL women deserve to be beaten... not just the ugly ones.

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  11. why do we beat up where our children come from, i mean ive heard of fights but this is extreme. WE ARE ALL MADE FROM WOMEN SO YES LETS NOT BEAT EM?

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  12. It happens in the United States too. My grandmother-in-law was beaten by her mason husband. Of course they don't dare show what happens here, so they show what happens in other countries.

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  13. what is it? that in almost all of the cultures man has to rule

    is the man fiscal strain? And why we woman accept a partrichal society ?

    I dont get it

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  14. All men who beat women are nothing but cowards and this is the only thing they know how to do in order to show power.
    I love men, but these once should burn in hell. Becaue if they were REAL men, they would know that this is NOT the way to treat a women. Men and women fight all the time, but this is just crazy. These men gross me out! And my bofriend (who is a man!) agrees with me!

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  15. I'm only 12yrs old and I agree that they are just coward's they just want to have control over someone or something

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  16. You must live in a nice part of town to have never heard of the horrible beatings that goes on. Open your eyes! There is much more you haven't seen and much more you will never know in your life time. And good for you that you don't have a man that beats you and one who respects you. You got lucky, but a lot of women around the world didn't, including Africa. the fact that your even online using the computer would be a privilege to hundreds of women. So what u think every woman out there ends up with a good man in life? think again

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  17. Half of the world really dosn't know how the other half lives, do they? And we all think that we are ordinary people.

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  18. Pigs and animals, and they aren't much better in the U.S. when it comes to how they treat women or each other.

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