The custom of forcing widows to have sex with strangers in Africa

Malawian women are forced to have sex with strangers after their husbands die to avoid being haunted and cursed by their husbands' spirits.

“Widow cleansing” is a tradition that has existed for thousands of years in Malawi, a southeastern African country. Accordingly, after finishing the funeral for her husband, the first thing a wife needs to do is find a strange man and have sex with him.

Malawians believe that this will protect the wife from being cursed or harassed by her husband’s spirit. The practice is so ingrained in Malawian culture that widows feel it is their “responsibility” and “obligation” to carry it out, despite the risk of contracting HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

The ritual of “purification” is a haunting for Malawian widows. Photo: Force Change.

Although Malawian society has developed, the practice of forcing widows to have sex with strangers has not changed. It has even been “professionalized” into a service providing men for widows to sleep with. The price for such sex is 50 USD, while the average wage for a worker in Malawi is only 1 USD/day. This causes heavy losses to widows both physically and mentally.

One man in the service even admitted to having unprotected sex with dozens of women even after being confirmed HIV positive. However, many still choose to use the service because they do not want to seduce other men to perform the “purification” ritual. In contrast, Malawian men are generally not interested in widows and consider them bad luck.

More than 50% of Malawian women are married before the age of 18. Photo: Diakonia.

Seodi White is a lawyer and women’s rights activist in Malawi. She has traveled the country to campaign against the practice and to persuade families not to let their daughters marry underage. “Many widows have cried when they spoke to me, saying they did not want their husbands to curse them. They cried when they did it, even though they were in great pain,” she said.

Low education levels, unsafe sex habits and lack of condom use have made sexually transmitted diseases worse in recent years. 60% of people infected with HIV/AIDS in Malawi are women and it is this terrifying ritual that makes them victims of the world's most feared disease.

According to VNE