An Impromptu Disagreement with a Policeman...

It’s our last night tonight before going on camp with orphans and vulnerable children from tomorrow until Saturday. There were a few things we were expecting: living off a diet of nshima (yummy… not), playing games with the kids and being outrun by them (slightly embarrassing), sleeping in the open under the stars (sounds romantic but what about the bugs) – but Oliver just came round with the daily schedule and I am HORRIFIED. We have to wake up at 5.30AM. We have a RUN for an hour before breakfast. I DO NOT RUN. I CANNOT RUN. Eva says we should market it as a fit-camp for overweight Westeners.

It also means that this will be the last blog post until Saturday, when we’ll update you on the camp. Four days with no communication to the outside world… waaaaaaahhhh

Moving on though, today we were back at LADA.

Blandina and me before work

We dealt with one case in the morning – a 26-year old woman named Shanchesta had come to seek advice about her abusive husband. He had offered to give her 700 Kwacha, about £90, to open a shop. She did, but now he refuses to support the family: she is the one feeding them all, paying the rent and sending her children to school, all from the proceeds of sale in the shop. The matter is worsened by the fact that whenever they disagree over the slightest matter, Shanchesta’s husband will close down the shop, reminding her of the 700 Kwacha he contributed. This only causes the family to lose money. On top of all this, the husband has many mistresses, and on returning from sleeping with them, he savagely beats Shanchesta. She lifted her fringe to show a vivid scar running down her forehead – this is how bad it has been.

Blandina at her desk

Blandina, who was giving the advice from LADA today, told us that they were not supposed to recommend divorce as this leads to more sexual partners for each of the couple, spreading the risk of HIV contraction (although, considering how many mistresses the husband is alleged to have, it seems to be somewhat shutting the door after the horse has bolted). Instead, they send Shanchesta home with a letter summoning the husband to a meeting on Monday, where they will hopefully sign a legally binding agreement where the husband promises not to hurt her again. If he refuses, the police will become involved. I cannot help but think how terrifying it must be for Shanchesta, all too aware of her husband’s violent nature, to hand that agreement to him.

Eva reading the draft Zambian constitution

After this, we were eager to see what the next steps were for people who had sought advice through LADA and what was being done for them, so Blandina took us to the Community Development and Social Welfare Office. This is a governmental department, in contrast to LADA which is a non-governmental and non-profit organisation, and the District Social Welfare Officer allowed us to interview him. He said the office had both statutory duties (i.e. those which they are obliged to perform by law) and non-statutory functions. The statutory ones included advising courts in the manner in which to deal with young offenders, and making sure the young offenders were sufficiently represented, whilst also being concerned with adoption matters. The non-statutory duties, however, seemed to go on for a lot longer – they generally included taking care of the vulnerable and poor in every way from finding shelters for the homeless to buying food for the poor. I have to say, I internally raised an eyebrow when the officer mentioned some of these functions: we have visited a few of the most poverty-stricken rural areas around Monze over the past week, and not a single person has received any such help from the government – they are unaware that such schemes exist.

the tiny office

been hoping to see one of the trains since we arrived - they make our room rattle at night, but this was our first sighting

One of the biggest problem areas which the office faces is in the issues surrounding juvenile offenders. At the moment, there are no juvenile cells, so when arrested the children are kept with adults for what could be a very long time until their trial. Once convicted, juveniles will rarely serve a custodial sentence but will instead be sent to a school where they learn practical skills such as woodwork, and when they are ready to leave they will be given a bag of tools. However the officer said that on leaving this school, many of the pupils will sell their tools rather than use the skills they have acquired, and there are statistics to suggest that approximately 50% of young offenders will commit a crime again on being released back into their community – this is often because their community will stigmatise and reject them. The crimes committed are generally motivated by poverty: theft and pickpocketing are most frequent.

The next place we visited was the Victim Support Centre, a section of the Zambian police. This is where victims of abuse are expected to report their case, and will supposedly be helped. I was not impressed. In cases of spousal abuse, their solution seems to be: hear the complaint from the abused woman, get the husband and wife in together, give them some ‘counseling’ and then, if the abuse continues, they may consider making an arrest. As one male officer put it, it is remarkable how often they will live happily together after the first counseling session. Yes, I thought, of course they may appear to be living happily, because the husband has probably warned his wife that if she reports him again he will hurt her worse than ever before.

a dead cow being hauled out of the boot outside the police station - CSI anyone?

When the officer asked us about our system and we told him that men who abused their wives were often arrested as soon as the initial complaint was made, he appeared stunned. ‘After only one complaint?’ he asked.

Perhaps I am looking back on the conversation from a biased perspective – the officer did not further endear himself to me when he inquired about the subject of homosexual partnership in the UK. We have already experienced that everyone in Zambia automatically assumes you are a Christian, so when he started raising Christian morals, Eva (as an agnostic) thought she’d better keep her mouth shut and stay out of it. But I somehow managed to get involved in a rather heated debate, which perhaps began when the officer acted as though he was personally offended by the idea that a gay couple could adopt a child in the UK. Eva and I both put forward out opinions that as long as the child was brought up in a loving and supportive environment, what did it matter which gender the parents were? There are too many parent-less children needing a safe environment, and too few ‘traditional’ couples willing to offer it. The officer argued that homosexuality was banned in the bible – I tentatively put forward my opinion that the bible was influenced by social prejudices at the time in which it was written. This developed into, ‘So you do not believe the bible is the word of God?’ I tried to explain that yes, on the whole, I did, but that the messages in the bible should be taken with a pinch of salt, considering the hostorical and social context within which it was written. Suddenly flitting back to homosexuality, the next question was, ‘So do you believe that God made Adam and Eve?’ Instead of opening the can of worms which is my opinion that this isn’t a literal story of creation, but more a symbolic tale, I just hesitantly agreed. ‘Then why did he make man and woman? Why not just man and man? Why tell them that they should multiply?’

I think it’s safe to say I returned all of his questions with my own theories, emphasising that this was only my opinion. If you’re interested, feel free to ask me too – if not, be assured that I put up a decent argument.

We left with a polite and friendly exterior, but Eva and I were both internally fuming – not because the officer did not subscribe to the same points of view as us, but because he was so unwilling to even consider another’s opinion. Blandina, looking slightly bemused, smiled wryly at us. ‘Not to worry, he’s a pastor in his spare time. He once told an abused woman who came to him that she was possessed, and that she needed to find Jesus.’

I’m sure he had the best intent, but it’s not really the solution a physically victimised wife wants to hear when trying to stop her husband.

And so ended our working day. We went in search of a pizza for dinner, but sadly it appeared that Monze had not received their weekly cheese ration. It’s a rare produce out here. Kebabs it was.

So, for the final time until Saturday, goodnight and much love! Keep us in your thoughts when we’re doing a 6am run…

Oh, and one final thing. A good friend from Nottingham has been keeping me updated with Nottingham’s Left Lion newspaper whilst I’ve been at uni. I promised to get a novelty photo of myself with it in Zambia, so here we go!

thank you, and happy birthday