Source: MANA Online
Gender-based violence in the country dropped by 52.9 per cent in 2013, says the National Community Policing Office.

The police attribute the decline to vigorous sensitization campaigns they conducted in liaison with community leaders and other stakeholders.

In an interview with Malawi News Agency (Mana), National Child Protection Officer, Insp. Alexander Ngwala, said the country registered a high rate of Gender-based violence (GBV) cases in 2012 as compared to 2011 and that this forced the police to strengthen their outreach to the communities through community policing structures.

"We collect our data through Victim Support Units across the country and in 2011, there were 24,915 cases reported and in 2014, the figure shot to 29, 488," Ngwala said.

He said: "We combined forces with communities to fight gender-based violence and in 2013, we registered 15,601, a drop of over 50 per cent."

However, Ngwala said although this was cause for joy, most of the cases reported in 2013 were serious ones as some resulted in death while others caused permanent deformity.

He said most GBV cases in the year included wife battering, extra-marital affairs and failure to provide children with necessities.

Ngwala also observed that there was a rise in incest and defilement cases in the year, describing it as one of the most disturbing forms of GBV.

"We had a number of incest and defilement cases for example, in Dedza, Traditional Authority Tambala where a man married his own biological daughter and in another case, a chief was suspected to have defiled a young girl," he said.

He bemoaned the growing culture of silence when such incidences occur, citing the Dedza incident as an example. He said when the suspected chief was summoned by an organisation the police work with, the chief simply sent his indunas who went to the organisation and said they had sorted out the matter among themselves.

"By the time we intervened, the suspected had fled to neighbouring Mozambique," said Ngwala. "So we are appealing to all chiefs and community leaders to leave to police all cases which are criminal in nature and let them deal with issues of land dispute and other civil issues."

Commenting on the decline in GBV cases, Deputy National Police spokesperson, Kelvin Maigwa, described the drop more than 50 per cent as a positive indicator that there was a lot of community policing carried in the country and that people had began to understand the evils of GBV.

However, Maigwa said much as the police were determined to increase its capacity in combating GBV through community policing, the law enforcers were hand-capped in terms of resources.

He said: "We are doing all we can to create awareness to all communities across the country but we are challenged in terms of resources to help us increase our interaction with communities and speed up prosecution of GBV cases so that justice is applied, and the victims are fully supported."

Malawi News Agency recently reported a gender-based violence case where a woman scalded her husband with boiling water in Lilongwe after the two quarreled.

• Malawi