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(Indian) have no need for “new freedoms” in either legislation or
social form. “Our male relatives and husbands take care of these.
That is the beauty of our culture, women are protected, unlike in
black Zambian societies where the woman is like a man. She has to
fend for herself even when she has a husband and male relatives”.
Her widowed sister-in-law, Anusha, a university graduate in microbiology,
who has never worked since graduating, agrees with her
saying Asian women living in Zambia are “immune” from many of
the ills in local societies. She gives an example of property grabbing,
a scourge women activists are facing an uphill battle with.
“In Indian custom there is no property grabbing. I did not need
any law to protect my children and myself. Our extended family is
still strong and takes care of widows and orphans. So tell me what
else I need”, she says passionately.
But while Asian women seem to bask in this protection from their
husbands and male relatives, this does not take away the fact that
they do not have any ownership rights to property.
For the black Zambian woman, it is a lack of education, illiteracy,
and awareness of civic rights that hinders her from achieving
economic/ social emancipation. But even when Asian women are
educated and can be economically viable, they appear to accept
values and norms without questioning the effect it has on their
lives.
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Munira Pillay a medical doctor says all the “benefits” of women’s
freedoms enshrined in the Zambian Constitution, and the strides
the women activists have made, benefit Asian women also, whether
they actually need to employ them or not. However Pillay, who is
Hindu, says all these things become irrelevant when it comes to
actually applying them. Helpful as the national laws are for women,
the deeper trouble lies with the way they are applied and the way
they are interpreted by male members of the Indian society.
Legally, women can now own land and property. However, Indian
women are never titleholders of their husbands or family’s property.
They are not even custodians. Instead their resources are
passed on to a male relative who takes care of it and they have no