By Nelly Mncina
 |
Lobamba: Mana
Mamba – Raising four children on her own in a one-room hut with a leaky roof
(WFP - 2011). On 19 April 2018 Mswati will
invite poor mothers like Mana to his lavish birthday celebrations and sing his
praises as he wastes hundreds of millions in public funds.
Despite claims that Swaziland is a
modern country, despite pledges and commitments to uplift the living standards
of women, the reality is that women in Swaziland continue to be victims of
extreme oppression and discrimination. Women are treated as inferior beings and
denied the enjoyment of their rights under the dictatorship of Mswati III, who
rules Swaziland with an iron fist as an absolute monarch. Swaziland is a deeply
patriarchal society where women oppression is normalised by the monarchical
regime, also known as tinkhundla, which is unwilling to transform.
Role of
religion and culture in oppression of women
One of the key drivers of patriarchy
is religion, especially as driven by the tinkhundla regime. With Swaziland
being dominated by Christianity, the regime too often uses the bible to deepen
the “God-mandated” subordination of women to men. Swazi women are indoctrinated
to accept and cherish an inferior status. When women fight against patriarchy,
they are often attacked for fighting against nature, God and the king. This
situation should never be accepted by working class women. These vile ideas
must be fought against wherever they show up!
In addition to religion, the treatment
of women as second class citizens also finds its basis in Swazi culture. The
religion and culture mix leads to the belief that a man’s wife is essentially a
firstborn child of the family. In too many public meetings in Swaziland,
especially in traditional meetings in the communities, a woman is not allowed
to speak. If she has something to say she asks her husband to speak on her
behalf, and if she is a widow she asks her male relative. In many communities
in Swaziland it is still regarded as taboo for a woman to speak in the presence
of men. If she wishes to speak, she must kneel whilst making her contribution.
This has been evident in the gatherings organised by Mswati that take place at
Lobamba royal kraal.
Women and the
workplace
Whilst women still suffer the worst
with regard to unemployment, the workplace also proves to be a place of pain
and grief for women. Since the decision whether a woman gets employed or not
rests largely with men, it often happens that for a woman to get a job she has
to offer sexual favours to the man in charge. The same happens when it comes to
promotion and other rights that women deserve as workers.
According to
a 2016 report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), women have few
formal employment opportunities and wages for women are low. According to the
report, Swaziland has a Gender Inequality Index (GII) value of
0.566, ranking 137th out of 159 countries in the 2015 index. The
report adds that in Swaziland 27.3 percent of adult women have reached at least
a secondary level of education compared to 30.5 percent of their male
counterparts. For every 100,000 live births, 389 women die from pregnancy
related causes; and the adolescent birth rate is 70.4 births per 1,000 women of
ages 15-19. Female participation in the labour market is 40.0 percent compared
to 64.2 percent for men.
The right to
maternity leave exists only in name.
The reality, especially in the garments sector, is that women have to choose to
work through their pregnancies or take leave and be fired. In a report covered by the
Swazi Observer newspaper, the Secretary General of the Amalgamated Trade Unions of Swaziland
(ATUSWA) commented, “Pregnant women on maternity leave are still being replaced
in Swaziland. In fact, the employers normally advise these women to resign and
take their severance pay which is calculated for only 10 days per year.”
Women and
property rights
Since women are regarded as children,
for far too long they have not enjoyed the right to own land without a male
counterpart. This makes women dependent on their husbands. Widows, divorced
women and single mothers have been the worst victims of such a backward
practice.
Married women are also not allowed to
take bank loans without a written permission from their husbands, thus a woman
finds it extremely hard to progress economically under the current patriarchal
society of Swaziland.
Violence
against women
It is a known fact that women are the
worst victims of violence, domestic or otherwise, in Swaziland. Despite this,
Swaziland’s tinkhundla Parliament has taken over a decade dilly-dallying over
the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill and refused to pass it into law.
So many flimsy excuses have been offered for the failure to pass the Bill; from
the Bill being “against nature”, to its being “uncultural” and “unSwazi” and
thus negatively affecting men’s rights to approach and court a woman as and
when they wish, in line with old Swazi ways. The regime does not care that in
Swaziland 1 in 3 girls experience sexual violence before they reach the age of
18.
 |
Tintswalo Ngobeni protesting in the United Kingdom. In 2013,
fearing for her life, Tintswalo sought asylum in the UK after absolute monarch
Mswati III wanted to forcefully marry her as his 14th wife.
Tinkhundla
elections and ritual murders
This year, 2018, Mswati, the last
absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa, will conduct his sham elections; an exercise
in futility as there is nothing democratic about these elections. These
elections have another effect, however; they enrich a few people who go to
parliament. In the scramble for those parliamentary seats, it is again women
who become victims. The tinkhundla elections go away with many women’s lives
who are ritually murdered by aspiring candidates to win elections. In fact, ritual killing cases increase when
the country heads towards elections and national ceremonies such as Incwala, Umhlanga (reed dance) and Mswati's birthday.
During the 2008 tinkhundla elections,
the Swaziland government banned a women’s march to protest against ritual
murders. The authorities argued that the march would have been a sign of
disrespectful to the dictator. The march had been motivated by that election
year’s mystery disappearances and murders of women. Some of these women had
been found mutilated. Their case was swept under the carpet by the tinkhundla
regime.
It is a fact spoken in hush tones in
Swaziland that girls die every year during the Umhlanga ceremony under unclear circumstances. Such deaths are
usually kept secret by the regime. In 2014, a 16 year old girl died under
mysterious conditions after having collapsed shortly after eating food served
by the regime at the reed dance. Some girls have been reported to have drowned
in shallow waters, with the regime later warning their families against
speaking to the media about the deaths or telling them to not seek autopsies.
 |
This is one of the trucks used by the absolute monarch to ferry maidens
during the annual Umhlanga ceremony.
Girls die every year whilst riding on these trucks.
The biggest number of deaths in one
year happened on 28 August 2015. Maidens who were travelling in the regime’s
open trucks died, and tens of them heavily wounded, when the truck they were
travelling in collided with another vehicle. The regime ensured to sweep under
the carpet any information related to the incident, with families warned
against speaking to the media about the issue. The tinkhundla regime praised
the death of those girls as a brave act of sacrifice for their king by the dead
girls. Till this day the truth about that accident has not been told. We demand
justice for our sisters!
Conclusion
In the context of Swaziland, the first
point of struggle for women emancipation is the struggle to dismantle the
tinkhundla regime. Both women and men have the duty to contribute to the
struggle for gender equality. There can be no freedom for Swaziland without the
freedom of women. Thus, the struggle for women emancipation is interwoven with
the Swaziland struggle for freedom.
Likewise, there can be no struggle for
a democratic Swaziland without women playing an active part in it, putting
their demands forward whilst waging the democratic revolution. It must be
clear, additionally, that this struggle should also be waged within the mass
democratic movement, for the organisations making up this movement are not
immune to the maladies that come with patriarchy.
Comrade Nelly Mncina serves as the Women Organiser in the
Communist Party of Swaziland
·
Liciniso
No comments:
Post a Comment