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In an effort to curb growing rates of HIV and AIDS, the Malawi government is drafting a law to ban polygamy. Now,  the country’s Muslim population is arguing that the proposed ban violates their religious freedom. Interestingly, both supporters and opposition of the ban are citing the benefit of women as their main argument:

[A spokesman for the Muslim Association of Malawi] said with about 6% more women than men in Malawi, if polygamy were banned, many women would be left without a husband and become prostitutes.

The gender minister said the ban was necessary to prevent women from being abused in polygamous relationships.

She said problems occurred because men could not give their full attention to more than one woman.

“When a man has two, three, four wives, they are not co-operative – one will be the loved one,” said Gender Minister Patricia Kaliati.

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Criminalizing HIV

HIV laws were originally put into place to reduce the number of people infected with HIV and protect those who are not yet infected. For example, in Sierra Leone, a mother who transmits HIV to her child can be fined or even jailed up to seven years.  The number of people infected with HIV is not reduced because of these laws. In many countries in Africa (for example: in addition to Sierra Leone: Egypt, Angola, Zimbabwe and Malawi), where these HIV laws are rampant and where 61 percent of adults (ages 15+) living with HIV/AIDS are female,  these anti-HIV laws hurt women rather than helping them.

Malawi has drafted a bill into legislation that would criminalize those who willfully transmit HIV to others.  For example, this law could be used to prosecute pregnant women who infect their infants and would force sex workers to be tested for HIV. Seodi White, the national coordinator of Women and Law in Southern Africa in Malawi, says that the law is targeting the wrong women:

That is a fundamental human rights issue, and we are totally against that. At the same time, it doesn’t mean we’re against any form of criminalization. In Southern Africa, mainly it’s men having multiple sexual relations, and men who transmit [HIV] recklessly and even maliciously. So there has to be a level of responsibility that the law can capture. Read the rest of this entry →