Community members encouraged to report child neglect and GBV cases

Child neglect happens when one or both parents abandon their responsibility in taking care of their children. According to the Child Care, Protection and Justice Act (2010) parents or guardians have the duty and responsibility to exercise joint primary responsibility for raising their children. During the first Glenorchy Estate TfD performance in GVH Mandandanda, Mulanje district, community members had a chance to learn, discuss, and put in place action plans to deal with the vice.

An official from Mulanje Magistrate Court assured the people that they have mechanisms for punishing parents who neglect their children. He emphasized that conviction is applied when perpetrators of the vice fail to comply with legal orders. He also encouraged women, men, boys, and girls not to suffer in silence but to report any form of GBV case that they experience.

The play exposed the tendency of some men who fail to provide school fees for their children due to wasting their wages on beer drinking. As a result, children are forced to help their mother to do piece work to support both their school and basic needs. A quarrel that ended in wife buttery, occurred when the woman asked her husband to help in raising the funds for their daughter’s examination fees.

ArtGlo is implementing the Tiyambe Project in the tea and macadamia districts of Thyolo and Mulanje with support from the Eastern Produce Malawi Limited. The project seeks to empower women, men, girls, and boys to influence change, shift behaviors around gender-based violence, and promote gender equality.