Mysterious Malawi
September 4
Dining at Anna & Cecilia’s house last night we learnt of the witchcraft laws in Malawi. And I should pretext this by saying that traditional beliefs, including the practice of witchcraft, pervade every single aspect of village life in Malawi, with an unshakable belief that cannot be fully understood by most azungu. This is to the point where the overwhelming majority of the patients we see in the paediatrics department at the hospital have already been to a witch doctor first. In saying this, not only is witchcraft in this country quite a recognized and publicly outlawed practice, but the government has actually got a formal written Witchcraft Act – admittedly penned in 1911, but they still use it!
Laws of Malawi
Witchcraft
Chapter 7:02
An Act to deal with Trial by Ordeal,
Witchcraft & the use of Charms
Should you be found in question over acts of witchcraft you will be summonsed by the magistrate to attend a formal hearing. Here, all the completely circumstantial evidence of nothing more than hearsay will be heard by the magistrate himself, being judge, jury and executioner all in one (saves on employing too many staff I presume). And what would be the punishment for such ludicrous crimes with no factual basis whatsoever, heard by a single, not very impartial, person? How about ten years in prison. Yes, you get ten years of imprisonment if one person feels that you are indeed a witch! You can look on the bright side I guess… they used to burn you at the stake in medieval times… thankfully we’ve all moved on from that absurdity, hey!
“6. Any person who by his statements or actions represents himself to be a wizard of witch or as having or exercising the power of witchcraft shall be liable to a fine of £50 and to imprisonment for ten years.”
You would also be interested to know that witches in Malawi fly around in baskets, not the conventional broomsticks that are the more internationally recognized form of aerial transport. I guess you can get hold of a decent basket for 50 kwacha, whereas most brooms start at a hefty 150 kwacha. They do however obviously adopt the standard practice of boiling various things in their cauldrons, thus there is a rule within the Witchcraft Act that prohibits, and I kid you not, death by boiling.
“2. Trial by the ordeal of mwabvi or other poison, fire, boiling water, or by any ordeal which is likely directly or indirectly to result in death of or bodily injury to any person shall be and is hereby prohibited.”
“3. Any person who directs or controls or presides at any trial or ordeal which is prohibited by this Act shall be liable to imprisonment for 7 years.”
And the longer you stay in this loveable, but unfathomably bizarre country, the more you delve into the esoteric. Where else in the world would you find public safety posters pleading ‘do not jump onto moving vehicles,’ complete with cartoon picture of an unsuccessful attempt. Perhaps a place that doesn’t let learner drivers use their indicators because ‘that would confuse them.’ Or maybe one that turns its traffic lights off after dark… and even when they’re on they're merely suggestion anyway. So it wouldn’t surprise you that the same place has its own nationally aired soap opera that is filmed entirely on a home video camera, or that a hospital's answer to a major rat infestation was to pay the families 5 kwacha for every dead rat they could bring in, or as still to this day a minted coin worth all of AUD$0.00008. And the fun continues:
Or there’s the fabulous story of one of our good friends, Yaseen, who sacked one of his employees for stealing some nails from his factory. The employee turned up in front of his supervisor at work the following day with a forged note from Yaseen stating that he had been falsely retrenched, and that he could continue to work. Being more than a little suspicious, the supervisor sent the employee to Yaseen to verify the note. Not only did the guy have the audacity (or sheer lack of brains) to actually bring the note to Yaseen, but just as he was about to hand it over a spark must have gone off in his head as he realised his foolhardiness, so he promptly ate the note, right in front of Yaseen. Yes, he ate it.
Unfortunately not all of the quirks are that amusing. How about a government that reduces the number of nurses employed under them when an independent donor decides they will fund more nurses – the donor sees that the country doesn’t have anywhere near enough nursing staff (and rightly so), then the government decides that they can spend money elsewhere by saving on nursing because a donor is paying! Queens Hospital has just procured enough funding to build a new kangaroo care facility for newborn babies and their mothers to improve parenting skills, yet even before the ward has opened (i.e. the public don’t even have access here yet) no fewer than sixteen taps have been stolen from the place… because you can get a couple of hundred kwacha palming these off at the market! Laboratories crossing out blood test results in official reports after they have been released and not telling anyone they were in fact wrong. What about newspapers that publish articles about how doctors need to be held responsible for deaths from rabies when the government refuses to pay for or distribute the life saving vaccine given its high cost. Unfortunately the very hospital we work in provides us with an unending flow of frustrations.
Then there's the downright depressing. A six-year-old girl was admitted to our hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia, one of the many she had suffered of late, presumably due to HIV infection. Her own mother managed to coerce her into admitting she was indeed a witch one night in hospital. The mother therefore absconded with the child the next morning to return to their village, so that the 'witch' could be given the punishment she deserves by the village chief. This sort of 'mob justice' is usually completely ill-informed, all to often violent and sometimes even results in death.
Witchcraft
Chapter 7:02
An Act to deal with Trial by Ordeal,
Witchcraft & the use of Charms
Should you be found in question over acts of witchcraft you will be summonsed by the magistrate to attend a formal hearing. Here, all the completely circumstantial evidence of nothing more than hearsay will be heard by the magistrate himself, being judge, jury and executioner all in one (saves on employing too many staff I presume). And what would be the punishment for such ludicrous crimes with no factual basis whatsoever, heard by a single, not very impartial, person? How about ten years in prison. Yes, you get ten years of imprisonment if one person feels that you are indeed a witch! You can look on the bright side I guess… they used to burn you at the stake in medieval times… thankfully we’ve all moved on from that absurdity, hey!
“6. Any person who by his statements or actions represents himself to be a wizard of witch or as having or exercising the power of witchcraft shall be liable to a fine of £50 and to imprisonment for ten years.”
You would also be interested to know that witches in Malawi fly around in baskets, not the conventional broomsticks that are the more internationally recognized form of aerial transport. I guess you can get hold of a decent basket for 50 kwacha, whereas most brooms start at a hefty 150 kwacha. They do however obviously adopt the standard practice of boiling various things in their cauldrons, thus there is a rule within the Witchcraft Act that prohibits, and I kid you not, death by boiling.
“2. Trial by the ordeal of mwabvi or other poison, fire, boiling water, or by any ordeal which is likely directly or indirectly to result in death of or bodily injury to any person shall be and is hereby prohibited.”
“3. Any person who directs or controls or presides at any trial or ordeal which is prohibited by this Act shall be liable to imprisonment for 7 years.”
And the longer you stay in this loveable, but unfathomably bizarre country, the more you delve into the esoteric. Where else in the world would you find public safety posters pleading ‘do not jump onto moving vehicles,’ complete with cartoon picture of an unsuccessful attempt. Perhaps a place that doesn’t let learner drivers use their indicators because ‘that would confuse them.’ Or maybe one that turns its traffic lights off after dark… and even when they’re on they're merely suggestion anyway. So it wouldn’t surprise you that the same place has its own nationally aired soap opera that is filmed entirely on a home video camera, or that a hospital's answer to a major rat infestation was to pay the families 5 kwacha for every dead rat they could bring in, or as still to this day a minted coin worth all of AUD$0.00008. And the fun continues:
Or there’s the fabulous story of one of our good friends, Yaseen, who sacked one of his employees for stealing some nails from his factory. The employee turned up in front of his supervisor at work the following day with a forged note from Yaseen stating that he had been falsely retrenched, and that he could continue to work. Being more than a little suspicious, the supervisor sent the employee to Yaseen to verify the note. Not only did the guy have the audacity (or sheer lack of brains) to actually bring the note to Yaseen, but just as he was about to hand it over a spark must have gone off in his head as he realised his foolhardiness, so he promptly ate the note, right in front of Yaseen. Yes, he ate it.
Unfortunately not all of the quirks are that amusing. How about a government that reduces the number of nurses employed under them when an independent donor decides they will fund more nurses – the donor sees that the country doesn’t have anywhere near enough nursing staff (and rightly so), then the government decides that they can spend money elsewhere by saving on nursing because a donor is paying! Queens Hospital has just procured enough funding to build a new kangaroo care facility for newborn babies and their mothers to improve parenting skills, yet even before the ward has opened (i.e. the public don’t even have access here yet) no fewer than sixteen taps have been stolen from the place… because you can get a couple of hundred kwacha palming these off at the market! Laboratories crossing out blood test results in official reports after they have been released and not telling anyone they were in fact wrong. What about newspapers that publish articles about how doctors need to be held responsible for deaths from rabies when the government refuses to pay for or distribute the life saving vaccine given its high cost. Unfortunately the very hospital we work in provides us with an unending flow of frustrations.
Then there's the downright depressing. A six-year-old girl was admitted to our hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia, one of the many she had suffered of late, presumably due to HIV infection. Her own mother managed to coerce her into admitting she was indeed a witch one night in hospital. The mother therefore absconded with the child the next morning to return to their village, so that the 'witch' could be given the punishment she deserves by the village chief. This sort of 'mob justice' is usually completely ill-informed, all to often violent and sometimes even results in death.
