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Malawi - Religion

Malawi is predominantly a Christian country, but it also has a sizeable Islamic population, mostly located along the southern lakeshore. Along with the major organized religions, animist beliefs are still strong in many areas of the country, and these beliefs often influence the organized religions, as well. Many religions take different forms that Americans may not be accustomed to, as local cultures and historical beliefs heavily influence these practices.

Malawi's religious make-up was greatly affected by missionaries and the slave trade. Among missionary groups, the Free Church of Scotland, the Dutch Reformed Church (South Africa), and the Church of Scotland were the most important in the early development of Christianity in Malawi, establishing the Livingstonia, Nkhoma, and Blantyre Synods respectively. The three synods eventually united to form the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) and remain the largest Protestant denomination in Malawi.

Islam, originally established among the Yao people along the southern lakeshore of Lake Malawi, arrived via slave traders from Zanzibar in the 1870s. Although still largely concentrated in southeastern Malawi, Muslims, nearly all adherents of Sunni Islam, can now be found in all urban areas of Malawi.

The White Fathers brought Catholicism to Malawi in 1889, and the Roman Catholic Church has since grown to be the largest single denomination in the country with over two million members. The Catholic bishops' March 1992 pastoral letter, which criticized the economic disparity and restriction of freedom in Malawi, is credited with starting the process that led to democracy in Malawi. While other religions and denominations exist in abundance in Malawi, the CCAP, Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM), and the Roman Catholic Church remain the most influential in politics today.

The Northern Region of Malawi, home to the CCAP-Livingstonia Synod, contains approximately ten percent of Malawi's population. The Livingstonia Synod dates back to 1875, when it was founded by Dr. Robert Laws in honor of Dr. David Livingstone. The synod has a history of promoting education which over time has led to a more literate, educated population in the northern region of Malawi than in other parts of the country. This educational superiority led during the colonial period to what many other Malawians considered an overrepresentation of northerners in government and other desirable jobs, and subsequently to a backlash and discrimination. Northerners are predominantly Tambuka speakers, while 80 percent of Malawi speaks Chichewa, creating a second differentiating factor for the region.

Rastafarians in Malawi are intensifying their push for the government to lift its ban on students attending school wearing dreadlocks. They argue it is unconstitutional to deny their children an education because of their religious practice, which calls for wearing their hair in that style. Despite an absence of legislation on hair length or its appearance in Malawi, Rastafarians in this southern African country have long been banned from wearing dreadlocks in public primary schools. They are usually told to remove the locks or risk being denied entry. In 2011 President Bingu wa Mutharika verbally instructed teachers to start allowing dreadlocked Rastafarian children in schools. But following his death in 2012, the instructions did not get implemented.

Malawi has no law outlawing witchcraft, and no legal definition of witchcraft, yet there is continuing persecution of those denounced as witches. Prison records indicate that as of mid-2011, more than 60 people were in jail after being convicted of witchcraft-related offenses. All of them were released in May 2011, and the final group of two ladies were released on 21 December 2012. The government of Norway funded a campaign to expose false accusations of witchcraft.

Malawi has a Witchcraft Act dating back to 1911, but it states there is no such thing as witchcraft and makes it a punishable offense even to accuse anyone of being a witch. Scores of people -- most of them women, children or the elderly -- have been imprisoned after being pressured or beaten into "confessing" they were involved in witchcraft.

Being labeled a witch brings violent consequences in nearly three-quarters of all cases. Those consequences include beatings, other physical harassment or worse. Once brutalized into confessing, suspected witches lose their property to vandals and thieves. And after release from prison they are socially and psychologically ostracized. There also have been cases where witch doctors -- traditional healers believed to have the power to identify witches and to exorcise evil spirits -- sexually abused female suspects under the pretext of "cleansing" them.

On 26 January 2016, a mob in the southern district of Neno killed four people, aged between 69 and 89, after a 17-year-old girl died, struck by lightning according to local media. The crowd accused the elderly residents of practicing witchcraft. In March 2016 a mob pounced on seven men accused of possessing human bones for witchcraft. The mob set fire to the suspects, and even overpowered the police who tried to intervene. It is believed that the body parts are taken to bordering Mozambique and Tanzania, where witchdoctors believe that potions made from the human body parts, in particular those from albino individuals, bring good luck and wealth.

Attacks on people with albinism resurged in Malawi after a six-month lull in 2016, when the government and a local rights group campaigned to end the violence. Albinos are targeted because of the false belief that their body parts have powers to increase wealth. A visiting U.N. representative said an estimated 10,000 albinos faced death in Malawi if the government fails to end these attacks. An Albino welfare body asked the government in March 2017 to institute a commission of inquiry to find where the body parts are sold. Police records show that 19 people with albinism have been killed since 2014, along with about 100 cases of abductions and attempted abductions. The government previously put measures into effect to end the attacks, including imposing harsh penalties on those who seek to harm albinos. It also set up a task force to deal with crimes against albinos.

A court in the southern Malawi district of Nsanje on 22 November 2016 sentenced a 45-year-old man to two years in jail for having unprotected sex with bereaved widows and young girls as part of that area’s traditional custom of women cleansing. Malawi police arrested Eric Aniva in July 2016, following orders from Malawi President Peter Mutharika. President Mutharika was reacting to concerns that Aniva might have infected the women with HIV.

Eric Aniva earlier told both local and international media that he slept with more than 100 young girls and widows during an initiation ceremony known as “Kusasa Fumbi” or “Removing Dust,” and “Fisi” or Hyena. Fisi is a traditional custom in southern Malawi: a man is hired and paid to have sex with widows allegedly to exorcise evil spirits that may bring death to the bereaved family. Kusasa Fumbi is another custom practiced in the area: hiring a man to sleep with young girls who have reached puberty in order to prepare them for married life.

Principal Magistrate Innocent Nebi said Aniva violated Malawi’s 2013 Gender Equality Act which outlaws harmful traditional practices. He therefore sentenced Aniva to 24 months in jail for the first count of engaging in harmful practices and another 10 months jail for attempting to engage in harmful cultural practices.

Nsanje district is rich in cultural practices that require men to sleep with women. Besides Fisi and Kusasa Fumbi, there are four more cultural practices that require men sleeping with women. One of them is Dzwande, in which a man is hired to sleep with a single mother when her newly born baby is six months old. Village elders say the aim is to keep the baby away from disease.