Nancy Magwaya: Grassroots Innovators’ Challenge winner

It would be anyone’s nightmare to be stripped and paraded naked in public.

Nancy Magwaya, 49, faced such a humiliation in 2002 when three men subjected her to this after assaulting her.

She is a mother of two who comes from Kabinda Village, Traditional Authority Kachere in Dedza.

Nancy is among 37.5 percent of women in the country who have experienced violence.

Following the ordeal which cost her marriage, she became a feminist, motivated by the will to help girls and women from her area and beyond, going through different forms of gender-based violence (GBV).

“I always explain my ordeal to victims so that they can relate with me as a fellow victim. I tell them it is not their fault. I also direct them to the police for a report and the hospital for evidence.

“My goal is to ensure justice for GBV victims. I work hand in hand with the police Victim Support Units (VSU) to achieve this. I do not want anyone going through GBV like I did,” she says.

In 2006, Nancy joined the Just Associates (Jass), an international organisation which works with female human rights defenders—where she was trained in feminist movement building and leadership, as well as HIV treatment literacy.

“Following the training, we were encouraged to start some hubs. Mine was the first to be established in Lilongwe at my Area 22 house where I still operate from to date because of lack of funding. From 2011, I started sensitising women and girls on GBV,” she explains.

As part of her contribution, in 2015, Nancy stopped child prostitution in Area 22.

Older men were taking advantage of younger girls by sleeping with them in a house that was rented just for that purpose.

Nancy also saved three sex workers from a mob.

“That morning, I woke up to chants by people calling the three girls names and beating them for sleeping with an older man. They were discovered by his grandson.

“I took them into my house, locked them in and rushed to the police station to report the matter. We hired a car to take them to the hospital as one of the girls was badly injured,” she explains.

Her resilience to seeing justice served on perpetrators of GBV and the victims getting justice recently earned her the Grassroots Innovators’ Challenge recognition by the Barefoot Law Award in Uganda.

Nancy received a $1 000 (about K1.7 million) prize.

“The award has encouraged me to soldier on in my work and the funds will help me advance my work because I do not get any funding for my activities,” she says.

Nancy’s work goes beyond activism for justice.

She sometimes cares for lost or abandoned children and also houses victims who find returning home risky of more domestic violence.

In addition, Nancy looks after those awaiting their court cases.

Her challenges are hiring vehicles to ferry victims to health facilities for medical attention, feeding and housing them without funding.

Over the years, the Zomba-born and bred activist has assisted over 100 people, with 20 of them seeing their cases through the courts and getting justice.

Among the cases involved one where a man defiled a 10-year-old.

“I caught the man with the help of community members and reported him to police. He went through trial and was slapped with a 14-year jail term for defilement,” she explains.

Nancy says she has been labelled a prostitute on social media for challenging men to sleep with her even without pay if they wanted, just to spare children from defilement.

“This happened when we caught a man defiling his stepchild. Touched by the rising cases of defilement, I jokingly offered myself for the men who find it hard to propose women their own age,” she explains.

But the biggest highlight of her journey into activism was when she saved some women who were being duped by a man who targeted the financially sound.

She explains: “A certain woman married a man she met on Facebook and she had a 14-year-old daughter at the time. Unfortunately, the husband defiled her. When he found out she was pregnant, he bolted. I searched for him on Facebook and lured him into a relationship.

“He was in Zambia at the time and I convinced him to meet me. We agreed to meet in Mchinji so I tipped off the police. He was arrested on arrival in Lilongwe. A police search revealed that he had three passports, a Zambian, Malawian and Tanzanian. My actions saved many women who would have fallen victim.”

Area 36 Police’s sub-inspector Lawrence Indio confirmed working with Nancy in cracking some of the GBV crimes in his area and outside.

“We often ask her for help. She once helped us withdraw a child from prostitution at Pondamali. She is also doing a great job taking in homeless people and providing for them. She is a huge asset to this community and others, as she equally works in Kawale, areas 24, 36 and 22,” he says.

And besides helping GBV victims, she also empowers them to be self-sufficient, realising that most cases happen because of over-dependence on partners.

“When we meet at the hub, we ask each other about life in our homes and because it is a safe place, people feel free to disclose any GBV because we teach them about it,” she says.

The mother of two grew up in Zomba where her parents worked at the State House.

She is the sixth born in a family of eight children and also a grandmother of two.

Following her father’s passing in 1987, the family moved to Area 22 where she lives to date.

A Ngoni from Dedza, Nancy likes to dance Ingoma and Uyeni as well as playing netball.