Today is World Day for remembering the Prevention of and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation. Our Staff Writer JAMES CHAVULA takes a peek into the 'safe spaces' for survivors of sexual violence and abuse.
In Malawi, an awakening is rising that health is not just about being disease-free or swallowing pills. Healthcare workers now share rooms with police officers, child protectors and counsellors so that survivors of sexual exploitation can get the care they need under one roof.
Every day, distressed clients discreetly drop into the one-stop centres to access checkups to ascertain sexual assault, pills that avert unintended pregnancy and HIV infection, counselling and police reports.
But they include children attacked by people who are supposed to protect them -- like a 16-year-old choirgirl defiled at church by a catechist, 35.
At Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, tongues still wag about the teacher of Catholic doctrine jailed for 21 years.
"We traced the victim who was being kept indoors and medical examinations conducted at the one-stop centre confirmed she had been defiled. The police arrested the suspect," Blantyre district child protection officer John Manyumba narrated shortly after the incident.
This year, the 'safe spaces' went on trial for sending back a 13-year-old girl who wanted to terminate a pregnancy that left her sick, traumatised and refusing to eat.
Alinafe, who was sexually assaulted by a neighbour four times her age, travelled 22 kilometres to Chileka Health Centre, but in vain.
Girl who beat British legacy
She fearlessly sued a clinician who claimed his hands were tied by a colonial law made by an all-male British Parliament in 1861, a century-and-a-half before her birth. She also sued Chileka Health Centre, Health Ministry, the Attorney General and Malawi Human Rights Commission for undermining the Gender Equality Act, which guarantees women's right to decide when to have a child.
Last month, the High Court proclaimed sexually assaulted minors' right to demand safe abortion from public and private hospitals.
Judge Mike Tembo ruled that the court had "no doubt" that according to Section 19 of the Gender Equality Act, a girl victim of a sexual offence "definitely has a right to seek an abortion automatically".
"It is harsh and inhumane to insist that such a girl keep the pregnancy in such circumstances," he rebuked the clinician.
Like health centres, one-stop centres cannot claim to provide adequate services for sexual exploitation survivors minus abortion services to preserve a minor "from ruin by either mental or physical challenges associated with an unwanted pregnancy".
Malawi is one of 12 African countries that allow abortion only to preserve a woman's life.
The verdict adds a new exception to the law imported from Britain a century ago. British lawmakers decriminalised abortion in 1967 -- three years after Malawi's independence -- and scrapped related arrests and trials in June this year.
Ironically, Malawi's law remains unchanged, pushing women and girls to secretly abort using wires, sticks, soap and herbs. The Ministry of Health attributes six to 18 percent of pregnancy-related deaths to unsafe abortions conducted outside clinics.
A study co-led by Chisale Mhango, the ministry's ex-director of reproductive health, reported over 141 000 women induced abortions in 2015.
The researchers from Kamuzu College of Health Sciences and US-based Guttimacher Foundation reported that 60 percent needed treatment and two-thirds sought post-abortion care in health facilities.
'I slept in peace'
Alinafe thanks the court for clarifying victimised children's rights, as one in five girls under 18 suffer sexual violence.
"That Tuesday, I was happy and I slept in peace," she says. "Government officials didn't care about my rights and laws."
Lawyer Godfrey Kangaude, national coordinator of Nyale Institute which supported her litigation, calls for respect for diverse beliefs and conscience following High Court Judgment.
He says: "The Judiciary's duty, as set out in Section 9 of the Constitution, is to interpret and enforce the law independently and impartially, guided only by legally relevant facts.
"If judges were to apply personal or religious beliefs, the justice system would descend into inconsistency and chaos."
Amnesty International says the ruling highlights the urgent need for Malawi to reform restrictive abortion laws and post-abortion care standards.
"In a country where abortion remains largely criminalised, this landmark ruling affirms that forcing a woman or girl to carry an unwanted pregnancy is a violation of her rights," says Amnesty regional director Tigere Chagutah.
.However, some faith leaders want the State to challenge the judgement in the Supreme Court of Appeal and new lawmakers to reject the Termination of Pregnancy Bill drafted by the Law Commission after nationwide hearings in 2015.
The proposed law that past parliamentarians shunned seeks to permit termination of a pregnancy caused by rape, defilement and incest; if it threatens her mental health; and when the foetus is too malformed to survive on its own.
"We are consulting our legal counsel to explore appropriate steps," reads a reply by Catholic bishops, evangelicals, Baptists, Muslims and others.
Muslim Association of Malawi spokesperson Sheikh Dinala Chabulika says the judgement could become "a licence for abortion on-demand".
However, pro-choice Anglican pastor Fr Martin Kalimbe retorts: "If you read the judgement, it is clear that the court only examined laws and facts, not religion."
Religious Leaders Network for Choice expects the ruling will free minors from "the torment of carrying forced pregnancies to term while suffering alone in silence".
Says its coordinator , the Reverend Cliff Nyekanyeka of CCAP Blantyre Synod: "Women should choose who to have children with, when to have children and how many children to have. We all need to stand up for the victims of sexual abuse and protect the vulnerable minors who are oftentimes taken advantage of even by people they trust."