Minister expels suspected lesbian in Malawi

Login Form

News Archive

Who's Online

Mandygeu

Written by Administrator

A Malawian minister has expelled a woman suspected to be a lesbian from her constituency, saying she does not want her to "corrupt morals of my young constituents". Patricia Kaliati, the free-speaking Minister of Women and Child Development, told PANA Thursday that 42-year-old Nellie Somanje, a businesswoman, was told to leave the small town of Mkando in the southern district of Mulanje, to protect vulnerable children in the area.

Kaliati, Director of Women, in President Bingu wa Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is also a Member of Parliament for the area, some 60 kilometres from the commercial capital, Blantyre.

"Yes, Somanje is persona non grata here," she said in a telephone interview, adding "she must leave the area in order to protect vulnerable girls here."

Somanje has since relocated to her original home in the southern lakeshore resort district of Mangochi.

Somanje's suspected lesbianism came to light when she was arrested in November last year after two girls in her employ - aged 14 and 15 - complained that their boss was forcefully having sex with them.

She was charged with gross indecency, a felony that can attract up to 14 years in jail. She was immediately released on bail.

However, during trial, Somanje denied the charges, telling presiding Mulanje Second Grade Magistrate Lameck Mkwapatira that the two girls voluntarily asked her to be applying caster oil - locally known as nsatsi - on their private parts which traditionalists believe improves a woman's sexual vitality and prowess.

"I used to apply on them the caster oil twice daily at their request," she told the court.

Mkwapatira agreed with her that the act was indeed consensual and acquitted the businesswoman, citing the lack of evidence from the state to prove that Somanje was a lesbian or was indeed forcefully having carnal knowledge of the two girls.

"In the absence of a medical report to prove the sexual acts, this court is compelled to acquit the accused," read court records reported widely in Malawi's press Thursday.

But the ruling did not go down well with Kaliati who proceeded to order the expulsion of Somanje from her area.

"The laws forbid women from having sex with fellow women," she said, stressing that "what the Mulanje Magistrates' Court did is legally wrong. When we have a court, we expect it to protect the rights of the vulnerable."

Kaliati said Magistrate Mkwapatira's ruling may have a negative impact on the on -going high-profile case in the Blantyre Chief Resident Magistrates' court where Malawi's first openly gay men are being tried on three counts of gross indecency and practising unnatural acts between males.

That case, involving 26-year-old Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20 - who had a traditional public engagement 26 December ahead of their planned wedding in the new year - is coming up for hearing on Monday, 25 January.

They have been remanded in jail since their arrest on 27 December.

Malawi is largely a conservative society with the majority of the 13.1 million people frowning upon homosexuality, let alone same-sex marriages. Church leaders even liken homosexuality to satanism.

However, research by gay rights activists indicate that homosexual acts are increasingly taking place underground and in the country's prisons.

The arrest of the first gay men over Christmas has rekindled the debate with activists challenging authorities to expunge homophobic laws off the statute books as they contradict the spirit of the new constitution adopted in 1995 whose Bill of Rights states that no one shall be discriminated against in Malawi on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Blantyre(afriquejet.com) - 22 January 2010.

< Prev		Next >