Anna Salima, 24, has painful memories of her first marriage. It only took her a week to realise that she had married the wrong man.

In the five years she was married, Salima endured verbal, as well as physical abuse but stayed in the marriage in the hope that her husband would change.

A UNFPA staff member visiting Salima at her home

But after their first child was born, she called it quits and returned to her parents’ home. The abuse she went through in her marriage made her bitter, and she vowed not to marry again.

However, it was not long when another man literally walked into her life, promising heaven.

“He seemed to be somewhat different from my first husband,” she says. “He was so kind and caring, and I thought of giving him a chance.”

Within some months, the two engaged. A traditional marriage ceremony followed and Salima forgot about the pains of her first marriage, but not for long. 

Love turns sour

A few months after the marriage, her new husband started querying why she was not getting pregnant.

“I pointed out that it may be his problem as I already had children from my first marriage,” she says: “This didn’t go down well with him. Suddenly, he became moody and started drinking excessively.”

The drinking was a tell-tale sign of the horrors Salima was yet to face.

“One day, he returned home totally drunk. We had a minor disagreement and he pulled a knife threatening to stab me,” she explains.

Luckily, Salima’s sister intervened.

The situation cooled a little when Salima became pregnant.

After two years, she also delivered another child, but the husband was now too much into the bottle.

“I tried to reason with him, but to no avail,” explains Anna.

One day, as Salima was coming from the field, he saw her husband seated on the verandah. His mood was sour. And in such cases, Salima made it her point to avoid any confrontations.

“He asked for food and I hastily prepared a meal for him,” she recollects. “After that, he said he wanted to sleep with me, but I pleaded  with him that I was tired. He tried to drag me into the house and I refused.”

Panga love

In anger, Salima’s husband went inside the house and came back wielding a machete. He hacked her on the arm twice. Sensing danger, Salima fled, with him hot in pursuit.

She narrates: “I was bleeding heavily and the only place I knew I would be safe was at the community victim support unit.

“I ran as fast as I could, and he eventually became tired and stopped pursuing me.”

At the victim support unit, Salima narrated her ordeal and members of the the unit alerted the community policing forum who went to her house and apprehended the husband.

Seeing that Salima was badly injured and without the means to access essential services, the victim support unit linked up with community fund committee to release some money so that she could go to the hospital for treatment. The committee is part of the European Union-funded Spotlight Initiative’s structure that helps GBV survivors with resources to access health, police and courts services.

“At the Health Centre, they said my wound was severe, and I was referred to Nkhata Bay District Hospital,” she says. “They then put a plaster of Paris on the injured arm and told me to come back for checkup in two months.”

The committee also supported Salima with more funds as transport to attend court sessions when her case was being heard.

“I am thankful for the support,” she said. “Without it, I couldn’t have made it to the court sessions. As the complainant in the case and the principal witness of the prosecution’s case, I was supposed to attend the court sessions not only as the witness but also as a key stakeholder in the case.”

Salima’s husband was convicted and is currently serving six years in prison. However, Salima feels the sentence should have been stiffer.

“I wanted him to get 30 years or more,” she says. “I am lucky that he injured my arm as he was aiming for the head. Such people should be put away for life as they are not only a risk to women, but the community at large.”

UNFPA support

Nkhata Bay has one of the highest GBV cases in the country. Recent statistics for the district show that out of 100 women and girls that experienced GBV, 11 of them experienced physical violence.

UNFPA has supported 18 communities in the district along the northern shoreline of Lake Malawi with the community fund varying from K600 000 or K900 000 each.

The total amount disbursed to the committees is MK13.5 million.

By April this year, the community fund had supported 823 women and girls who experienced and survived GBV cases of in the district.

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