Shock treatment for widows as pandemic ravages Zimbabwe

For Ntombama Mlalazi, a 62-year-old widow, life will never be the same again. Branded a witch in January 2001 following a string of deaths in her village in Mawabeni 45 kilometres from Zimbabwe's southern city of Bulawayo, she now has to bear the scars of this title. Her face and right arm is now permanently disfigured - a result of an exorcism ceremony ordered by the local headman of her area to clear the place of witchcraft.

"People were dying and Tsikamutanda (witch-hunters) said I was responsible," she says tearfully. "They made me crouch over a bucket with boiling water and covered me with a blanket. When I cried out that the steam was hurting me I could hear the Tsikamutanda saying the demon was leaving me." She says she was freed from the blanket 10 minutes later and her face and right arm was already scalded. A Good Samaritan arranged that she be carried to hospital where she spent two months. No arrests were made as no one could come out and identify the culprits.

Mlalazi's predicament is not unique to most widows and elderly women in Zimbabwe's rural communities, where the cultural belief in witchcraft is still prevalent given the advent of HIV/AIDS. Social analysts agree. "In rural Zimbabwe, elderly women and widows are usually referred to as witches," says sociologist Claudius Mararike. "It is a stigma dating back to the time of our forefathers and it would be difficult to remove," he adds. Mawabeni lies along the highway that links Bulawayo with Zimbabwe's southern neighbour, South Africa, and is inhabited by the Sotho people who have managed to maintain their cultural beliefs and tradition even many years after settling there from South Africa.

Health officials and AIDS workers from Mzingwane AIDS Council (MAC), an HIV/AIDS organisation found 30 kilometres south of Bulawayo, note an increase in HIV/AIDS-related deaths in the area, which they attribute to the area's vicinity to the Bulawayo-Johannesburg Highway. The area has also been devastated by a perennial drought, which is luring teenage girls and women to service truck drivers who operate along the highway. "HIV/AIDS incidences have been increasing because of poverty. Many young women are turning to prostitution and are an easy prey to the heavy truck drivers and other drivers who operate the highway," said MAC Director, Lucia Malemani.

However, instead of these deaths instilling awareness about the existence of HIV, they have sparked suspicions, allegations, and counter accusations of witchcraft. In an effort to bring the situation under control, headmen and traditional leaders in the villages within the vicinity of the highway are inviting witch-hunters who are commonly known in the area as Tsikamutanda. Headman Siyazi Mophoene had to bring in witch-hunters into his village when the death rate became alarming. "We are attending funerals every day and it is only the young people who are thinning and dying," he says. "When we were growing up it was taboo for young people to fall sick and die and the whole village had to be smelt out and the culprit identified," he says.

Mophoene and most people in his village believe that the deaths, which are similar, are a result of someone possessing a powerful charm that is being exposed to the young people. The prevalent belief is that HIV/AIDS can only attack a person if he or she has been bewitched or made unfortunate with the use of charms, a belief that is quite prevalent in most Zimbabwean rural areas. He says the Tsikamutanda, who normally travel in groups and conduct their ceremonies at night, are invited in consultation with members of the community. Villagers rounded up and caught in this foray are mostly widowed women, who are then accused of either bewitching their husbands or causing the increase in deaths in the areas. "You can only get AIDS when you are bewitched. People cannot all show the same symptoms when sick," says Mophoene.

Although the Tsikamutanda have been operating in Mawabeni for more than a year now, Mophoene is tight-lipped as to whether the exorcism ceremonies are effective. Sinikiwe Nkosana, 47, is homeless after being smelt out for causing the death of own husband. Her husband died last July in what people in her village in Mbalabala 60 kilometres south of Bulawayo termed "suspicious circumstances." She is now living in a squatter camp next to the railway station in Bulawayo. "Everyone knows that my husband had many other women partners and that he brought the disease home," she says. "I was surprised when the Tsikamutanda said I had bewitched him and that I was a danger to the other villagers if I was allowed to remain in the village."

Nkosana, whose only two children have also died of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses, says she was given one hour to leave the village by her in-laws and was not allowed to carry anything. "Even my in-laws had turned against me. They only allowed me access to a few clothes. I have lost everything I have accumulated in my lifetime," she says, as she fights to contain the sobs rising in her throat.

While causing physical and mental suffering to those widows identified as witches, witch-hunters are profiteering by cheating villagers in exorcising ceremonies. For one to be exorcised of witchcraft, one has to pay between Z$500 to Z$4000. Some families have also parted with livestock in order to pay the Tsikamutanda. When a village calls in witch hunters, it also has to pay for their upkeep.

Mlalazi and Nkosana's cases are just the tip of the iceberg, according to police, who admit that more people, especially women, have been mentally and physically traumatised and ripped off by the so-called witch hunters. Under the Constitution of Zimbabwe, it is illegal to label one a witch, but the police can only act when they receive reports. "The whole community has rendered us powerless as they are so secretive on the meetings. We only learnt about Mlalazi after she had been admitted into hospital," says the officer commanding Mzingwane Police Station, Inspector Grey Ngwenya.

The Zimbabwe Traditional Healers Association (Zinatha), the overall body responsible for the country's more than 50,000 traditional healers, admits the existence of witchcraft but draws a slim line between the linkage of HIV/AIDS to witchcraft. "Some symptoms of witchcraft are similar to those of HIV/AIDS but it is not always correct to attribute every death to the former in this age of the latter," says Peter Sibanda, Zinatha's Public Relations Secretary. He, however, says the Tsikamutanda are operating outside of the boundaries of Zinatha because the organisation's members do not carry out brutal exorcism ceremonies. He, nevertheless, admits that it is difficult to identify a true witch hunter from a false one. "More public education on HIV/AIDS is needed," he says.

In the face of this tragedy, MAC is initiating public education strategies carried out by peer educators on HIV/AIDS to target youth in schools. "We are targeting youth because they are the vulnerable group and through them we can instil behavioural change," says Sindiso Ndlovu, MAC's Programme Officer. "But we still have to try and separate HIV/AIDS from witchcraft, this which is proving to be difficult considering how deep rooted the belief is."