BBC
The story of Eric Aniva, a Malawi man who is paid to sleep with girls once they reach puberty, shocked the world when it came to light in July.
After Aniva told the BBC that he had had sex with more than 100 young girls without disclosing his HIV-positive status, President Peter Mutharika ordered his arrest in July.
Now, following a trial, Aniva has been sentenced to two years’ hard labour for his crimes – a punishment that women’s rights activists are protesting.
Aniva is from the remote southern region of Malawi, a landlocked African nation where tribal elders view this heinous act as a form of ritual “cleansing”. However, it also has the potential to do the very opposite of “cleansing” by spreading life-threatening diseases like HIV.
The practice is said to last up to three days and is performed by local men known as “hyenas” at the request of a girl’s family after she has had her first period. It marks her transition into womanhood.
Aniva claims he’s one of 10 hyenas in his area, and that every village in Nsanje district has them. The hyenas are paid between $5 and $10 each time.
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In a BBC interview in July, Aniva confessed that most of the girls he slept with were of school-going age.
“Some girls are just 12- or 13-years-old, but I prefer them older,” he told the BBC. “All these girls find pleasure in having me as their hyena. They actually are proud and tell other people that this man is a real man, he knows how to please a woman.”
Despite his terrible boasting, many local women are now coming forward to condemn the practice, which is believed to train girls to become good wives and to protect them from disease or misfortune. The traditional also dictates that if a wife loses her husband, she must be sexually cleansed before she can bury him. If she has an abortion, it is again required that she must sleep with a hyena.
According to The Guardian, Aniva’s case is the first to be tried under Malawi’s Gender Equality Act of 2013.
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