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Copious amounts of abuse are being borne stoically by brave women out there.
Usually, when reference is made to women abuse, it is quite easy for many to associate such kind of abuse with the treatment of women by men.
It would then be better characterised as gender-based abuse where even women perpetrate acts of abuse on fellow women.
In our previous edition we carried an article in which a woman was reported to have been ordered by her mother-in-law to sleep with her husbanda��s younger brother, in addition to sleeping with her husband whom the mother suspected to be impotent.
We believe this is a serious form of abuse.A� We are not told of the relationship between the woman and her mother-in-law but we are sure the relations must be strained now after the daughter-in-law asserted her rights by reporting the matter to the chief.
How women treat fellow women in cases of infertility can be quite worrying.A� It would appear in this case the gender ascribed role of the daughter-in-law was to bear children to grow the family and this was done with very little regard to the welfare and feelings of the daughter-in-law.
We believe daughters-in-law that face challenges in bearing children are emotionally abused by their in-laws and society is quite unfriendly to them, forcing some of them into extra-marital experiments and exposing themselves to unscrupulous prophets and inyangas after being made to feel something was wrong with them.
While traditionally such cases of having a younger brother bear children for his brother was practised, in secret though, this has become dangerously unacceptable due to the modern day rights awareness and the spectre of sexually transmitted diseases.
It is our view that our patriarchal society has had such a strong impact even on our womenfolk to the extent that they do not see anything wrong with subjecting fellow women to abuse all in the name of tradition.
It is our hope that the story of the sex roster daughter-in-law will shine the spotlight on the suffering of women who cannot bear children, and who silently but painfully waste away to an early death dueA� to stress from the family they would have been married into.
We urge couples who face fertility challenges to visit doctors and determine the source of problem instead of resorting to unsafe practices that may not be a solution at all.
Elsewhere in this issue we carry a story in which a visiting South African king urged a community with blood links to the kinga��s subjects back in South Africa to marry more women in order to grow their population.
There is a common thread in these stories. There is a fear of extinction of the clan on one hand and of a tribe on the other, and these ultimately affect the power base.
This stampeding of women into risky liaisons and the traditional veiling of the commodification of the women is right at the centre of skewed societal power relations that are shown by the involvement of women in the subjugation of fellow women.
It is our hope that the poor daughter-in-law gets justice that will send a strong message to like minded people in society. .
Online Reporter