cut off James Hall A Swazi man who instructed a traditional healer to cut off his wife’s clitoris has been fined R120 by a traditional court – a fine his wife, who almost bled to death, ended up paying. The case has sparked debate about the judgement of conservative elders who hear cases involving abused woman, and the rights of women in a kingdom where they are legal minors.
After Philemon Dlamini (54) confronted his 39-year-old wife Pauline on August 3 in rural Lubulini, following her two-day absence from home, he arranged with a local inyanga [traditional healer] to remove her clitoris. He told the traditional court: “I wanted to prevent her from dishing out her delicacy to other men.” Dlamini convinced his childless wife that the inyanga would remove a portion of the vagina called “imfelo”, which is believed to induce infant deaths during childbirth. She agreed, and submitted to the procedure, which was done without anaesthetic using a razor blade. The removed portions of the woman’s genitals were brought to hospital with the severely bleeding victim. They were later produced in court.
Mrs Dlamini had been called away from home on family business. Fearful of her husband’s wrath, she took the precaution of having an official from the area chief’s residence accompany her home to witness her apology. Police Assistant Superintendent Leckinah Magagula said that “contrary to local press reports, the charge against Dlamini was assault gbh [grievous bodily harm], and not attempted murder, which would have been heard in the Swaziland High Court.” A dual legal system exists in Swaziland, with Swazi national courts handling local and traditional matters under the unwritten and often subjective rules of Swazi law and custom. Magistrates’ courts function under Roman-Dutch law. Swaziland’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Lincoln Ng’arua, said it was a judgement call on the part of Siteki prosecutor Timothy Busenga to give Dlamini’s case to the traditional court. “Swazi national courts do handle cases of assault,” he says. The court president showed sympathy toward Dlamini, particularly after the assault victim asked that the charges against her husband be withdrawn. She paid the R120 fine that was levied against him and accompanied Dlamini home. Photographs show her grim, and him laughing. The Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse is looking into the case. Thobile Dlamini, who counsels abused women, said: “The case fits the pattern we see all the time of an abused woman who is completely dependent on her husband for support, yielding to wishful thinking that he will reform. We believe pressure was brought to bear on her by relatives to make her ask that charges be dropped. ‘It is your fault if he goes to jail,’ she was told.” In Mbabane, attorney Doo Apane, National Co- ordinator for the Women and Law advocacy group, detected in the traditional court’s handling of the case a patriarchal bias favouring the defendant. “A husband mutilates his wife out of jealousy, because among polygamous and traditional men there is a feeling that a wife is for a husband to do with as he wishes, because he paid lobola cattle dowry for her. To keep her from seeing other men, he removes her clitoris. It is like hobbling a horse.” Two weeks after her ordeal, Mrs Dlamini is recovering from her “surgery”, but she is pregnant, and faces the prospect of having to bear a child in two months. Physician Dr Zama Gama says a normal vaginal delivery depends on the degree of healing and possible infection that may yet fester from the razor blade used on her. Meanwhile, the action group intends to use the case to press for an expanding nationwide network of safe havens for abused women. Women in Law is proceeding with renewed urgency its survey of domestic violence in the kingdom.