adminHowever, it is important to take into account the multiple roles played by women as mothers, wives, caregivers, workers and their reproductive role. I suppose these were some of the issues that were considered for their exclusion from the death penalty.
Moreover unlike men, female convicts are more likely than male convicts to have children and to have been living with those children immediately before incarceration. Apart from that, many women in prison according to the book Introduction to Criminal Justice might be breast-feeding mothers or mothers-to-be.
Death sentence is different from other sentencing options because it involves the termination of life. It is surprising that in the Massachusetts Bay Colony witchcraft, rape, murder, adultery, assault in sudden anger and kidnapping all carry the death sentence. It seems this is different from Zimbabwe where among the list, murder carries the death penalty. During the 20th century more states executed people using the electrocution method but most states have abandoned this.
Quite a number of states have now resorted to the use of lethal injection, lethal gas, hanging and some use a firing squad.
According to the book Introduction to Criminal Justice the earliest recorded lawful execution in America was in 1608 in Virginia. Captain George Kendall a councillor for the colony was executed for being a spy for Spain. Since Kendall’s execution more than 19 000 legal executions have been performed in the United States.
However, only about three percent of those people executed since 1608 have been women. Ninety percent of the women executed were executed under local authority as opposed to state authority and the majority was executed before 1866.
The first woman to be executed was Jane Champion in Virginia in 1632. She was hanged for murdering and concealing the death of her child who was fathered by a man other than her husband. Since 1962 only 11 women have been executed in the United States as of 28 February 2007.
Women interviewed randomly welcomed the idea, while some feared that women might continue to commit serious crimes if they are excluded from the death penalty.
The above example in the United States shows that women indeed can face the death penalty for their own crimes. In America while the death penalty has been administered, over the years a series of lawsuits challenged various aspects of capital punishment as well as the constitutionality of the punishment itself especially between 1968 and 1972.
Some women highlighted that commenting on the clause was quite difficult as this was not their demands during the Copac outreach programmes and bearing in mind that Chapter One of the draft constitution states that the constitution is founded on respect for gender equality and recognition of equality in all human beings as well as fundamental rights and freedom (clause 3.1)
The following table shows the number of people executed in the United States of America by gender (October 2006)
SOURCE: Death Row USA NAACP Legal Defence and Educational Fund.
As shown on the table, nearly all the people executed have been male while the gender of the victims is divided evenly between males and females. Over the years though 35 percent of the initial convictions or sentences in capital cases were overturned on appeal.
Other principal executing countries of the world by 2006 were China, Iran , Saudi Arabia , United States , Pakistan , Vietnam , Jordan, Mongolia and Singapore. There is need however for recent data.
According to opinion polls conducted in terms of the death penalty in the United States of America, life imprisonment seems to be a popular alternative to the death penalty but the problem might be keeping a large number of offenders in prison for life.
In terms of men and women it would mean long periods of separation from children and the family. The exclusion of women from the death penalty might require the State to provide more information on the exclusion. It seems there are however, a lot of mixed feelings from interviewed women about exclusion.
Research has shown that there are three major reasons for sustaining the death penalty that is, the desire for vindictive revenge, the incapacitative power of the penalty and the symbolic value it has for law enforcement officials.
Excluding women from the death penalty might therefore have both positive and negative repercussions towards the development of the Zimbabwean nation.
Vaidah Mashangwa is the provincial development officer in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Bulawayo Province. She can be contacted on 0772111592/ 09-889224, email — [email protected]
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