On recent anti-abortion march

“OUTSIDE THE BOX” By Jennewinn.
(Jennewinn is a self-supporting ex-pat currently supplementing the Primary School programme in Malawi. Born in 1943, she has been teaching, writing and thinking “outside the box” since she was seventeen.)

Over one hundred years ago the Reverend John Chilembwe, arguably the best-known and most revered of Malawian martyrs who died for human rights, wrote these words:
” . . . It is sad to see a young mother, little more than a girl, with an infant on her back, and know that she is being thrust into a responsibility for which she is quite unfit, and at a time when she should be being taken care of herself, and she ought to have been left to the joys of young womanhood . . .”
(Quoted in ‘The History of Malawi, Part 1’ by D. D. Phiri.)

During a staff meeting in September 2014, we learned that PSI (Population Services International) Malawi had offered our community the opportunity to protect our primary school learners from HIV and unplanned pregnancies by providing them with condoms free of charge.

We were concerned that this offer might be interpreted by the young people – and the community at large – as an encouragement to engage in sexual activity at a time in their lives when we would prefer them to be abstinent.
This concern is genuine and must be taken seriously.

There are, however, other factors involved here which must also be considered and taken equally seriously: HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, population explosion and the environment, poverty, abortion, religious, traditional and cultural issues.

– “ENCOURAGING” CHILDREN TO BECOME SEXUALLY ACTIVE:
We as teachers are professionally involved with guiding and supporting the development of children into adult beings. It is our chosen intention to assist them along the path towards maturity by offering them the best tools at our command, that they may meet and conquer each of life’s challenges as they encounter them.
Our children may learn to read slowly, quickly, or in some cases not at all, but one challenge which they will definitely all encounter is sexual maturity.
Every young girl will have begun to menstruate by the end of her teen years, regardless of the availability of condoms and even if she has never heard of them.
Every young boy’s voice since the beginning of time has broken; each one experienced his development to manhood long before condoms were invented.
Development from birth to maturity is God-intended and God-given and beyond community, school, religious or parental control.
We can, of course – and of course we should – convey our beliefs and convictions concerning their actions to our children. That is what parenting and teaching are all about. But these attitudes must be conveyed much earlier if our children are to internalise them. We cannot force abstinence upon them, and we are deceiving nobody but ourselves if we claim to think we can. No more can we speed up their inner preparedness to become sexually active.
Unless they are prematurely forced by abuse, each young person will proceed at the pace he or she finds comfortable. Any attempt at forbidding this development can only lead to silence or deceit on the part of the child, which would at best be contra-productive and at worst deadly. A friendly, uncritical approach to the situation on our part is best able to foster the trust we wish our children to have in us, and encourage them to bring their questions and doubts to us for our advice.
I think we need to support our learners by being open about our reservations, at the same time accepting them as the young adults they are becoming and enabling them to avoid the foreseeable, inevitable dangers inherent in sexual activity today.

– HIV/AIDS:
HIV is transmitted by an exchange of bodily fluids. It was first diagnosed in Africa, where it has taken an exceptionally distressing toll of lives due in the first place to universal ignorance, then denial in the face of a new and devastating disease, (Malawi is famed globally for honesty and openness in this regard), thereafter in large part to unprotected sex.
In a country where all school books – even those for Standard 1! – devote the end pages to combating HIV, and in which orphans abound, it is superfluous for me to emphasise the results. If we are seriously interested in reaching zero new infections then we must accept universal condom use, most especially among young people who are not yet infected.
According to an article about VVMC published in “The Nation” on August 15th, 2014:
“The health of Africa is at stake. As many warned last month at the International Aids Conference in Melbourne, Australia, HIV continues to claim lives BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT TO.* There is much we can do right now, including caring for the sick, searching for a vaccine and USING CONDOMS* . . . We have made tremendous progress toward ending Aids, considering where we started. But we are not out of the woods yet – Aids is still upon us. ”
* the emphasis is mine.

– TEEN PREGNANCY:
Once a girl has begun menstruating, her uterus is capable of reproduction, regardless of how far her emotional, mental, skeletal or social development has progressed. Children as young as 8 are known to have given birth, with catastrophic consequences for their own tiny bodies and minds, quite apart from the baby’s right to have a mother who is capable of caring for it adequately.
Aside from the physical dangers inherent for any mother in pregnancy and birth, intensified by extreme youth, other effects need to be taken into account. The young mother will probably drop out of school, seriously damaging her chances of completing her education and being able to support herself and her baby.
If the father is also a schoolboy this family is off to a seriously endangered start!

– POPULATION EXPLOSION AND THE ENVIRONMENT:
Malawi currently has a population of about 16 million, of whom 52% are women.
The AVERAGE number of children born to each Malawian woman is six.
The environment has already suffered greatly in terms of deforestation for housing, agricultural and transport purposes as well as making charcoal or taking wood for burning because all these people naturally need somewhere to live and something to eat.
More than half the population is younger than 20 years old, which means that there are four million girls getting ready to have six children each, (24,000,000), half of whom will statistically be girls, getting ready to have six children each . . .
Where are they all going to live? What will they eat, how will they cook their food?
Today’s schoolchildren are the parents of the future. How are we preparing them to approach this role maturely and seriously?

– POVERTY:
HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy can happen to anybody, regardless of how well-off the family may be. But one of the very few God-given pleasures in this world without a (pre-paid) price tag is sex.
This quickly creates a vicious circle in which poverty plays a central and tragic role. One night of fun (at least for the male involved) can easily result in a pregnant teenager and HIV for mother and baby.
Infected herself and with a sick baby, her chances of falling into poverty are vastly increased, her chances of escaping it slide quickly to zero, and if she is driven to prostitution to support herself and her baby, the chances of her passing on the infection to her customers multiply with every partner who refuses to use a condom.

– ABORTION:
While the prevalent attitudes concerning contraception range from “Preventing conception equals murder” to “Contraception is only common sense”, I think we are basically agreed that abortion is a last resort, not a first-choice method of keeping the population within limits. Many women do actually carry an unplanned child whom they cannot afford to term, knowing that they will be unable to offer it even the most basic rights of food, clothing and education. Others do seek abortions for financial or personal (not medical) reasons, and the absolutely best and most effective way of keeping this number to a minimum is to prevent the pregnancy from occurring in the first place. The more violently one is against abortion, the more logical become the arguments in favour of contraception.

– TRADITION:
Traditionally, young girls in many cultures world-wide have been coupled, unconsulted, with older men who would hopefully be able to support them and the children resulting from the union. It is still customary in some parts of the world to marry girls off when they are nine or ten years old, thus (hopefully) ensuring that no child will be born out of wedlock.
Up to about 100 years ago it was taken for granted in all parts of the world that women did not need any schooling as they would spend their adult lives running homes, caring for their husbands and the resultant babies; the husbands in turn would go out to work, earn money and pay the bills.
The single-parent widows, unmarried mothers and the women who struggled to support both children and husbands were somehow invisible in a patriarchal society, although they were always present.
The idea of educating girls was heftily resisted by most men and many women, and only began to take hold in western society following the 1914-1918 ‘first world war’; four years in which the young men were away, many of them never to return, and women demonstrated openly that they were absolutely capable of running a household, caring for children AND going out to work – and many women had no intention of returning to the kitchen stove as a permanent way of life.
‘Tradition’ is always a continuous development of what has been proved successful (or attractive to one section of society) in the past, spiced with new ideas which will become traditional in due course. Mobile telephones were unavailable 30 years ago, they are now an integral, inescapable part of our daily lives and for our children they will be tradition.

– RELIGION:
Many religions attempt to control the private lives of their followers, supporting this with the claim that it is God’s wish. Many people whose lives are depicted in the Old Testament had multiple partners with God’s blessing, the intention being to procreate and populate the world. That goal has demonstrably been overachieved!
Today some religions living within the Old Testament parameters demand abstinence and monogamy in His name.

– CULTURE:
Malawian cultures, along with many others, have in the past taken the line that girls don’t need schooling, but it has been demonstrated that every year a girl spends in school is of measurable benefit to her children, her family and her community, so this way of thinking is gradually giving way to acceptance of schooling for girls.
The cultures here approve of and promote large families; in earlier times children were the only means of support for parents in their old age, and many children died in infancy, but with the development of modern medicine and the introduction of a viable pension scheme the basic need to have such large families is disappearing.
Culture may demand abstinence (at least for girls!) before marriage, but the high number of teenage mothers and school dropouts suggest that the abstinence-only programme is every bit as unsuccessful here as it is in the USA, where the incidence of teen pregnancy is directly linked to the intensity of abstinence-only programmes.

Quote from a US sex education programme: “Young people who take abstinence pledges aren’t any more likely to refrain from having sex than those who don’t, but they are more likely to have unprotected sex. Sex education would be more effective than fear mongering.”

Summing up, our young people are going to have and follow their own individual, God-given rhythm of development regardless of our approval or disapproval. I think they are entitled to any assistance we can give them to protect themselves from the potentially catastrophic consequences of unprotected sex.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

After writing the above I had an opportunity to look at the Life Skills learners’ textbook for Standard 8, which discusses HIV/AIDS, sexuality and relationships in all but one of 16 Units. There are repeated warnings against unprotected sex in many of the units. On page 15 we find the following sentence:
“Summary (Unit 3) – It is important that you should be equipped with correct information and skills so that you are able to cope with challenges that come with growing up. This will help you prevent contracting STIs including HIV and AIDS.”

Printed in the front of the ‘Social and Environmental Studies – Learners Book’ for Standard 8:
“ABC – You can prevent yourself from getting AIDS through sexual intercourse by the following three methods:

ABSTINENCE
Abstaining from sexual intercourse. This helps boys and girls to avoid contracting STIs including HIV / AIDS. It also ensures that girls and women avoid early or unwanted pregnancies. This helps girls to complete their education, make more career choices and gives them time to choose a lifelong partner.

BE FAITHFUL
Stay faithful to one lifelong partner who does not have other sexual partners. Different standards are often applied to the behaviour of a husband and to that of a wife. Many men are unfaithful and this puts the wife’s life at risk. In order to save life, a person who cannot abstain or be faithful must use the third method.

CONDOM
Use a condom during sexual intercourse. This prevents the body fluids of the male and female mixing. The condom is 99% effective. But sharp fingernails can damage a condom. Most brands on sale in this country have information on their proper use.

IF YOU CANNOT ABSTAIN AND YOU CANNOT BE FAITHFUL, PLEASE, KEEP YOUR PARTNER, FAMILY AND FUTURE SAFE BY USING A CONDOM.”

May we have the courage and strength to change what must be changed,
The patience, tolerance and understanding to accept what cannot be changed,
And the wisdom to recognise the difference.

Let us have the courage to reconsider accepting the protection PSI Malawi is offering to the young people entrusted to our care. I am told the funding to PSI for this purpose has been suspended. I can only hope it will be restored immediately.

ABANDONING INITIATION IN THE FACE OF HIV
The Nation, Friday, October 24th, 2014. Kondwani Kamilaya, staff writer.

The Lhomwe distinguish themselves from other Malawian tribes by way of dress, food, dance and other cultural nuances. One cannot talk of the tribe which migrated from Mozambique without mentioning their delicacies such as “mtandaza” (a pigeon-pea derived cassava mix), “kalongonda” and even snakes. Beads represent beauty and the sacred continuity of life. Dances such as “tchopa” are spiritual and add colour to their lives.
But most intimately, one cannot talk of the Lhomwe without mentioning their initiation rites. Girls and boys are initiated into adulthood through such “chinamwali” as “chidototo” and “zoma”. Initiation rites are central to the Lhomwe way of life, attests Chief Magombo: “At the initiation ceremony, they tell you all about a man, his private parts as well as how to satisfy him.”
The infusion of sexual notions into the minds of girls, some as young as five or six, is now causing the Lhomwe to rethink these rites.
“When young girls are subjected to this sex talk, they become curious and want to have sex with a man. For the boys, after the “chinamwali”, they are encouraged to have sex as a way of “removing dust”. This is always unprotected sex,” says the Mulanje chief.
Pressure against such counsel is rising, with religious leaders joining the battle. This is so primarily because communities feel early sexual activity leads to early marriages, teenage pregnancies, high school dropout rates, high risk of sexually transmitted infections and a continued cycle of poverty and destitution.
Reverend Albert Mkumba, who comes from Gibisa Village in T/A Mabuka’s area in Mulanje, feels “chinamwali” such as “zoma”, which is for boys and girls aged between five and six, should be eradicated as the main focus is on sex.
“It is these traditions which put our youths at risk of contracting HIV or having early pregnancies. It is time we repudiated such traditions,” he says.
Dr Mtisunge Kachingwe from the College of Medicine, who is also president of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), says research conducted by the association revealed a high correlation between some of the cultural norms and a host of problems resulting from early conception.
In a baseline survey conducted in three villages; Magombo, Mbewa and Nakhonyo, 377 girls aged between 15 and 24 were interviewed. It was discovered that 81.4 % of the respondents were in a sexual relationship. It also showed that 90% of them had had nothing to mitigate the risk of contracting HIV, any other sexually transmitted infection or pregnancy during their first sexual encounter.
“66% of the respondents had had at least one pregnancy in their lifetime, 72% of which resulted in live births while 15% were terminated in unsafe abortions. About half of the girls were not concerned about the idea of contracting HIV,” said Kachingwe.
She attributed the scenario to the initiation rites, lack of parental guidance and a knowledge gap on contraception and sexual reproductive health rights.
“It was evident from interviews and focus group meetings that traditional leaders and their subjects are turning against some cultural norms. It became clear that “ngalibas” (counsellors at “chinamwali”) should be incorporated into sexual reproductive health programmes,” said Kachingwe.
Currently, YWCA has embarked on a programme with funding from the Norwegian arm, NORAD, to create awareness on youths’ reproductive rights.
For newly installed Lhomwe T/A Ngolongoliwa, not only should some rites involving the youths be repudiated, but others involving the older generation should go as well. He cites “kuthundira”, which stipulates that a woman who has given birth must not sleep with her husband for eight months.
“That is a tradition which has increased HIV rates among we Lhomwes. It is an archaic rite which must go. During those eight months the husband will definitely* sleep with other women, exposing himself and his family to HIV,” says Ngolongoliwa, the only Lhomwe T/A.
One of his subjects, Maria Davide from Lupiya Village in Thyolo, says a lot of lies surround the “kuthundira” rite.
“We were told that if you sleep with your man before the eight months elapsed, your husband will die. For the two to start having sex again, their parents had to be involved,” she says.
But some chiefs like Nakhonyo feel repudiating initiations like “zoma” would erode part of the Lhomwe culture.
“An initiated child is different from an uninitiated one. It’s the same way you can spot the difference between a child who goes to school and one who does not. Sex is not the only thing the children are taught,” she says.

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*Why “definitely”? Are men so incapable of self-control, or so lacking in fantasy that they have no other way of sharing the joy of their sexuality with their wives? fcv