Every year, Malawi joins the rest of the world to commemorate 16 days of activism, a global campaign against gender based violence. The campaign starts on 25th of November which is international day for the elimination of gender based violence against women and girls and ends on 10th December, -Human Rights Day.

In view of the great task at hand, we at YFM online would like to join the band wagon in strongly condemning the act of violating rights of our innocent mothers who by any sense of humanity ought to be respected and protected from the venom of abuses that continue to degrade lives of many women and girls across the country.

We the “real voice of the youth women and children” are saddened to note that despite several efforts and commitment by the Malawi government and also concerted efforts from both local and international organizations, cases of gender based violence are still increasing at an alarming rate in the country with some bordering on physical injury and barbaric killings.

It is sad that this year (2017) the country registered numerous cases of killings of women with the perpetrators being husbands and or ex-boyfriends.

For evidence sake; cases of a young woman killed by her ex-boyfriend in Chilinde, a woman in Mzuzu killed together with her child by her husband and one in Mulanje district, too long to mention are some of the cases that we found to be evil and unacceptable in a democratic society like Malawi.

This period of anti – GBV, we would like to appeal to Malawians here and those in Diaspora to join hands in the fight against gender inequality which is one cancer to development of the country, here at YFM online feels that at 53 years of independence, Malawi should have done away with the issue of gender segregation not to talk of the stereotypes that keeps on diminishing our women and girls.

It is high time when we go back to the drawing board and see if all these socio norms and cultural beliefs that continue to risk the lives of our women and girls are still worth our attention and energy. It is shocking that some female students in the university still have to give their body to lectures just for better grades while their elder sisters have to go under carpet interview just to secure employment.

As this year’s guiding theme states that we have to leave no one behind in ending GBV, we are highly compelled to mention that our mothers who are dying in the maternity due to negligence of clinicians during labor just like what happened at Thyolo District Hospital where a mother had to die together with her expected baby just because the clinician at that hour was intoxicated. We find it to be a torture and abuse to women.

Some women who are also dying due to failure by authorities to provide necessary support such as ambulances and power backup in the maternity ward is one form of abuse women continue to face on the country.

For a long time, our mothers have made this country worth the warm heart of Africa; however, this work will be incomplete if we don’t rebuke the newly found behavior of women assaulting their fellow women for special differences.

The incident that happened in Lilongwe at area 24 where women had to beat and left their fellow woman in unconscious state due to infidelity allegations is one issue that should also come into the microscope in these 16 days of activism against GBV.

Nevertheless, our message is simple, despise Gender Based Violence!!