News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Man paid to have sex with young girls arrested

Posted: 26 Jul 2016 10:50 PM PDT

Malawi police have arrested an HIV-infected man who was paid to have sex with more than 100 adolescent girls as part of a traditional ritual.

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Malawi - Malawi police have arrested an HIV-infected man who was paid to have sex with more than 100 adolescent girls as part of a traditional ritual marking their passage to womanhood, officials said on Tuesday.

Eric Aniva, from the southern district of Nsanje, was held after giving a media interview confessing to have slept with the girls for a fee of between four and seven dollars, paid by each of their families.

The little-known local practice lasts three days and is performed in southern Malawi by men known as “hyenas” at the request of a girl's parents after her first menstruation.

The ritual is believed to train girls to become good wives and to protect them from disease or misfortune that could fall on their families or their village.

“Aniva was arrested on Monday after he was summoned to my office,” district commissioner Gift Lapozo told AFP.

In a BBC interview broadcast last week, Aniva confessed to being infected with HIV and sleeping with at least 100 girls without using protection.

“Some girls are just 12 or 13 years old, but I prefer them older,” he said.

“All these girls find pleasure in having me as their hyena. They actually are proud and tell other people that this man is a real man, he knows how to please a woman.”

It was unclear over how many years Aniva had been a “hyena”.

Malawian President Peter Mutharika had earlier issued a statement ordering Aniva's arrest and calling for an inquiry into the role of the parents involved.

Aniva should “be investigated for exposing the young girls to contracting HIV and further be charged accordingly,” Mutharika added.

“Harmful cultural and traditional practices cannot be accepted.”

The sexual cleansing ritual is also performed on bereaved widows in Nsanje district to exorcise villages of evil spirits or to prevent another death occurring.

Aniva, who has two wives and was reported to be in his 40s, said a “hyena” was selected by the community based on good morals and that custom did not allow him to use condoms.

“There was nothing else I could have done,” one girl told the BBC.

“I had to do it for the sake of my parents. If I'd refused, my family members could be attacked with diseases - even death - so I was scared.”

Malawi, which has one of the highest HIV infections in the world, criminalises sex with a person under the age of 16.

If found guilty of underage sex, Aniva could be imprisoned for life.

AFP

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#ThisFlag pastor toremain in SA

Posted: 26 Jul 2016 11:08 AM PDT

Zimbabwean pastor Evan Mawarire has been joinedin South Africa by his family, and he says he is too nervous to return home.

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Johannesburg - Reunited with his family in South Africa, Evan Mawarire, 39, the part-time pastor of a small, informal Harare congregation, and architect of Zimbabwe’s fast-growing social media protest site, #This Flag, says he is not going home.

His family, his wife and two daughters arrived from Zimbabwe late last week and he is now prepared to say on record that he is too nervous to return just yet.

Shortly after he encouraged people to stay away from work on July 6, President Robert Mugabe targeted him by accusing him of working for the French and US governments on a “regime change” agenda.

Mawarire became an instant national hero when he launched #This Flag in April, highlighting how many Zimbabweans are hungry, unemployed and frustrated with the Zanu PF administration.

Mugabe, 92, has been in power since 1980 independence.

After the stayaway, Mawarire was arrested and then released the next day after the Harare Magistrate’s Court threw out charges against him which claimed he was attempting to overthrow the government. Those charges – in effect treason – were different to the ones used to arrest him.

Suspecting police would charge him again he decided to leave Zimbabwe..

Then, at a state funeral days later, Mugabe told mourners that Mawarire was “not part of us” and if he didn’t “want to live with us” he should “go to those countries that are sponsoring them”. He accused Mawarire of using violence to create a stayaway.

“To hear a head of state talk of something that is an untruth is bad. So this has become a very serious situation for me, and I fear it. I am worried,” Mawarire responded at the time.

He said said then he didn’t want to disclose publicly that he was not returning to Zimbabwe until his family was safely out of the country.

Mawarire is a regular visitor to South Africa and has many friends here. He has also spent several years living in the UK and regularly travelled to the US.

He launched his #This Flag campaign, with a video of himself, draped in the national flag, lamenting that the government had betrayed the flag with its corruption, late payment of civil service salaries and failure to provide cash at the banks.

But he attributed the success of the stayaway not just to his tweets, but on a convergence of factors, including a riot at the Beit Bridge border post over a ban on some imports from South Africa, a strike by minibus drivers, and then a strike by teachers, nurses and doctors about not being paid.

“So it was a perfect storm for a stayaway and my calls contributed.”

He called for a second stayaway the following week which was largely ignored.

Mawarire earns his living as a master of ceremonies and marriage guidance counsellor, but says his business in Zimbabwe has, like so many, collapsed. He says he is not connected formally to any political party in Zimbabwe.

African News Agency

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