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This week, a man named Eric Aniva from Malawi was arrested after the BBC broadcast the
27-minute radio report " 'Stealing Innocence' in Malawi," which featured Aniva bragging
about being paid to sleep with more than 100 young girls and women, some as young as 12
years old.
Aniva is known in Malawi as a "hyena" man someone hired by families to have sex with
girls after their first menstruation. Aniva told the BBC he was HIV-positive and had not
disclosed this information to the families who hired him. He is one of 10 hyenas in the
Nsanje district, where he lives, and is paid from $4 to $7 each time, reported the BBC.
We spoke to two staffers from Equality Now, an international human rights organization
devoted to girls and women's issues, to learn more: Christa Stewart, a program manager,
and Naitore Nyamu, a program officer based in Kenya.
Why would people pay a man to have sex with young girls and women?
According to Stewart, the practice is viewed as a way to ritually cleanse girls after their first
period, usually within a three-day window. Some families tell girls they will get infections if
they don't have sex with a "hyena," says Stewart.
But it also happens in other life stages, too after an abortion or when a woman becomes
a widow, reports the BBC.
According to a study on sexual cleansing rituals in Western Kenya from 2007, sexual
intercourse is seen as a sacred rite when performed as a ritual and has the power to
cleanse evil spirits and sanctify.
Has the government of Malawi done anything about this particular case and
the practice in general?
President Peter Mutharika ordered Aniva's arrest a few days after his story came out on the
BBC. Stewart sees this as an indication that Malawi is moving in the right direction. "I was
really happy to see in the press that they arrested this man. The president said that he did
not condone this practice, that this practice does not have a place in society."
She adds that the country has made other positive strides. In February 2015, a new law set
the legal marriage age at 18. Now Stewart says the government officials need to enforce the
law.
"Even when there are good rules on the books," she says, "there's always that gap with
reality and how [the laws are] being perceived on the ground."
Change needs to extend beyond the government, says Nyamu: "There is also a need to
engage the opinion leaders, including religious leaders, the elders and chiefs in an effort to
change attitudes as they are often the gatekeepers."
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/07/29/487672132/malawis-hyena-
men-paid-by-parents-to-have-sex-with-their-daughters