Being born a girl in a family should not be seen as crime and used as justification to perpetrate gender-based violence.
Women or girls are said to suffer a lot of disadvantages in their families compared to the boy child.
Some of the disadvantages include doing most of the household chores, being less preferred in terms of opportunities among others.
However, Speaking in the Senate on debate on domestic violence Senator Otilia Maluleke Muhlawa said a lot of women are being disadvantaged because of their gender.
“The Constitution speaks about this issue. There is a law which protects women and girls. It is not a crime to be a woman or being a girl child in the family. We must be united and fight gender based violence,” she said.
The Senator added that “In the rural areas, people do farming activities and when they harvest and it is time to get paid, women are being abused physically and men normally take the money and go on a drinking spree with the money.
“It is painful for the women who would have been working hard for example in the cotton field. The woman ends up committing suicide,” she said.
The legislator implored other parliamentarians to take it upon themselves to teach people in the communities about gender-based violence and to report any kind of abuse.
“Mr President, it is our duty to go and teach women so that they must not commit suicide but speak out about gender based violence. They must go and report to the village heads and all other traditional leaders and we should inform them that if they do not report the issue to the chief, they can be reported to the police.
“Chiefs are dealing with those issues in a professional way. As husbands and wives, we must sit down and listen to each other. We must be united for the development of the country.
“Families should be united and they must work hard. We must reprimand them if they do wrong things so that they can do all the house duties according to our laws, working together for the prosperity of our country.”
