EveryWoman

Amend laws to effectively deal with sexual assault

A nasty video has been making rounds of a minor having sex with a seemingly adult. I say seemingly because it was his deep voice and partially exposed anatomy that certified his age. Otherwise, he was prudent enough to conceal himself and expose the minor. He was collecting memoirs based on the little conversation heard because the girl would be away on holiday. He needed something to remind him of her.

I will not go into details about the video. However, based on our Brains story on page 3, I related this video to the dilemma law enforcers are grappling with in prosecuting defilers, rapists, sexual assault and other related matters.

A UN Women funded meeting under the project called ‘Raising the Voice of Women in the Fight against Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG)’ in Ntchisi revealed challenges being encountered in prosecuting such cases. Participants observed that the courts set free men who were arrested for having sex with girls under18 years. And the reason is mainly due to discrepancies in our laws.

Ntchisi Second Grade Magistrate Fredrick Malobvu said while the new Family, Relations, Divorce and Marriage Act has raised the legally prescribed age of marriage to 18, other pieces of legislation allow girls aged 16 and less than 18 to engage in sexual intercourse.

He observed that The Constitution of Malawi and the Penal Code differ on sexual offences.

Said he: “This is why when the police charge a man for having sex with a 16-year-old girl, the courts will acquit the suspect unless the girl didn’t consent.”

Note the consent of a 16-year-old, to which I want to dwell my comment on.

Admittedly, some men behave dishonourably and will give all sorts of excuses to bed minors. The excuses include deliberate provocation by the under aged, high level of expertise to be a minor and women being in a majority  that one man is ‘allowed’ to have several women.

Even based on comments by those who have viewed the video, they tend to rate the highly experienced, hence that man cannot be faulted for ‘straying’. They are stuck on her ‘expertise’, thereby overlooking the wrong he is doing.

And with laws that seem to be working against each other, the war against defilement and sexual assault may just be a dream for Malawi because we have men who will claim consent and the poor girl admitting to the same. And if the laws ‘permit’ such crimes to happen, there is a limit to what anybody can do to arrest the problem. Here is why we are having underaged girls displaying expertise openly because they feel old enough to do so and sexual predators taking advantage.

The simple matter of fact is to address the pertinent issues that leave law enforcers in a dilemma to dealing with them before we can even sensitise men, women and girls especially on what is wrong of right.

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