As we commemorate the historic struggles of workers worldwide in this month of May in which labour (workers’) day falls, there are notable women from the urban working class who deserve to be profoundly honored as heroines of the broader struggle for human rights and democracy in Malawi.
Prof. Khoti Kamanga (middle) posing in exile with two women freedom fighters from Malawi (under LESOMA) in the early 1980s. Rose Chalira (left) and Sheera Marama (right).
Their remarkable stories remain largely untold to the wider public or rather forgotten or skipped from the pages of history.
One of such women (name withheld ) was a worker at the National Bank of Malawi in Blantyre who was arrested in May 1992 for possessing literature that was critical of the one-party state.
In September 1992, she testified to a delegation of Scottish lawyers about her horror while in detention as follows:
” I was interrogated by three men. They started questioning me about the paper. I said I know nothing. They started beating me with both hands clenched. He was beating me besides ears. Ear fluids came out of my right ear.
He pulled my hairs and made me fall down. He started stamping on my ears with his boots…He pulled my clothes right up. He then took a pair of pliers and pressed the pliers into my vagina and pinching it with the pliers about ten minutes.
I cried and cried. I started bleeding so I asked to go to the toilet. He told me I was disturbing our President’s Mama (Kadzamira) and Tembo (JZU). Then I felt pain in my jaw. I did not eat anything. I became septic.
For two months, I was there in prison discharging pus. I asked to see the doctor but I was refused…There were about 50 women in the cell at Chichiri Prison.”
From the early 1990s, the anti-one party-state literature was imported and circulated in Malawi through fax to strategically targeted workplaces thus effectively going around the problem of government interception of postal mail, telephone conversations, and publications.
To close down this loophole, in May 1992, the police embarked on a heavy crackdown on fax and photocopier operators at various workplaces, many of whom were arrested, harassed, and tortured for either being found in possession or facilitating the clandestine dissemination of the literature deemed seditious.
In the 1970s and 1980s, there were other women freedom fighters from Malawi in exile who were part of the struggle for human rights and democracy. Among others, these include Rose Chibambo, Vera Chirwa and others who had also been active in the struggle for independence in Nyasaland.
A mention is also made of a bunch of other exiled women freedom fighters against the one-party state in Malawi in the late 1970s and 1980s who were members of the opposition political party called LESOMA led by Dr. Attati Mpakati such as Rose Chiumia, Sheella Marama (on the photo above), Christine Mataka (on the photo below), Nettie Dzabara, Eunice Chalira, Takhala Nkhwazi, Elizabeth Chipofya, Lughano Mwambetania, Lusibilo Mwambetania, Jane Marama, Joy Munthali Sikazwe, Chetumale Chilangwe, Bakwiza Mvula, Sophia Mwaungulu etc.
From the early 1980s, most of these women freedom fighters along side other exiled young men from Malawi, acquired academic qualifications in various fields at universities/colleges in Europe and USSR through LESOMA negotiated scholarships and they subsequently constituted a pool of technocrats strategically mobilized by LESOMA in readiness for the post-one party state in Malawi.
This is Christine Mataka a young woman revolutionary from Malawi in the 1980s under LESOMA. Then in exile. She is now a medical doctor working in Tanzania.
Another fascinating account of the contribution of working-class women to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Malawi is that about urban women who started to openly protest during the first half of 1991 by wearing in public the attires (like trousers for ladies) that were strictly prohibited by the Dressing law of 1973.
Remarkably, this was way before the pastoral letter by Catholic bishops against the human rights abuses of the one-party state was issued on 8th March 1992 and also before the arrest of a veteran trade unionist Chakufwa Chihana on 6th April 1992 upon his arrival back to Malawi to openly challenge the tyrannical one-party state.
A number of women who defied the Dressing law of 1973 in this regard, were arrested, tried, convicted, and duly sentenced. The Police later had to respond by expressing outrage through the newspaper and threatened to punish any person who dared to violate the Dress Law.
A monthly magazine called Moni published a letter to the editor challenging the interpretation of the Dress law by the police. The writer of the letter happened to be a law lecturer at the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College in Zomba. Both the writer and the editor were hunted down and eventually detained for two days. They were threatened with sedition charges.
One can safely conclude that this defiance by women in the urban areas marked the genesis of the debate on the Dress law that culminated in its repeal in December 1993 as part of the transition to multiparty democracy in Malawi.
Today, there are some people who tend to question whether any demonstration or protest action by the masses on any matter has ever been effective to yield positive outcomes in Malawi. This particular protest action by women in the urban areas in 1991 against the Dress law leading to its repeal, could be one appropriate response.
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