Acrobat PDF - Kubatana

women who have been cheated out of inheritances, businesses and
resources by their male relatives, in-laws and husbands but refuse
to go to court because of the stigma attached to it.
Asian men also realise they can play on the timidity of their womenfolk.
Motala says these days men prefer to get their wives from
India, from poor families, who will live in Zambia under their bondage
with no immediate family and completely ignorant of the laws
of the land.
Asians and other minority groups make up one percent of the 10.3
million Zambian population. Women make up 51.3 percent of the
total population. Generally, Indian women shun advocacy groups,
which, paralegal Judith Kandoma feels could help raise awareness
to their rights.
While on the whole, women’s issues fall across the racial divide,
Kandoma believes that Indian women are particularly shackled by
tradition and culture which should have spurred them to take a
more proactive role in women’s emancipation.
“How will we know if they are being abused, physically or emotionally
or need counseling if we do not know what their problems are?
They have problems, we know that,” Kandoma says, adding that
the gains made by women’s movements are rendered useless
because Indian women do not enforce them. For example, the law
against incestuous relationships is clearly defined but Indian girls
against their will, are still forced into marriages with close relatives.
She says Indians in Zambia, live by the traditional norms and
culture brought by their ancestors when they came into Africa. But
unlike their counterparts in Asia and India, they have not agitated
for a change in gender issues. “In India, the women are fighting
against forced marriages, physical abuse, the caste system, economic
and political emancipation, but surprisingly, here, they are
content to be invisible. And yet that need not be the case. If they
came forward, we would include their concerns on our agenda,” she
says.
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