Lesotho

I have not known the warmth of marriage for all those years I mentioned that I stayed in my marriage. I was eighteen years old when I married this man and he was twenty three. We got married happily because we loved each other.

Those who know tell me that I was born on the 19 July 1955 and my mother died on the 20th of the same month and year. She died while giving birth to me.
I was raised by just somebody in the village who had compassion for me while my father was working at the mines. There was nobody who took good care of me let alone gave me parental care or love.

I am a woman and mother to my children. I live at Lekokoaneng and I have seven children from my husband who never took a rest from beating me. I was married in 1963 to this man who is older than me by 20 years. I was 15 when I got married to my husband.

Sometimes one would think that it is a punishment to be a woman from the things that our societies did or still do to us. I am a mother of four, three boys and a girl. I am 49 and go by the name Thandaza. I got married when I was at the very tender age of 15 and I was forced to marry a man much older than me. I had to leave school and get married.

The date was 3rd September 2011. I left my home with two friends of mine to collect speakers which were lent to a family in the village that had held a feast. While we were waiting for the speakers, two of our friends left and we did not know where they had gone.

Economic dependency has been cited as one of the causes for gender based violence (GBV), whose many victims and/ or survivors are women. It is often cited as the reason that forces women to stay in abusive relationships or marriages because they feel they cannot survive without an income from their spouses or male relations.
It is for this reason that Gender Links embarked on an emerging entrepreneurship project for women survivors of GBV in various countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

Maseru, 17 April: In this interview Colleen Lowe Morna -Gender Links CEO, gives an overview of the recent Lesotho SADC Gender Protocol@Work Summit.

As four other summit gatherings of the Gender Links 50/50 by 2015 and demanding a strong post 2015 agenda were currently ongoing, Lesotho was also in the thick of things as the Minister of Gender, Youth, Sports and Recreation, Thesele ‘Maseribane declared the summit open at the Maseru Sun Cabanas on Monday, 14 April 2014, stressing the need to uncompromisingly reject and stem out gender based violence.

“Women in our communities and nationwide, in local and national governance politics, seem to elect men to be politicians and occupy the most superior political positions in the country.À

This was said by the Minister of Gender, Youth, Sports and Recreation, Chief Thesele ‘Maseribane, at the official opening of a two-day gender summit which commenced on April 14, 2014 in Maseru, Lesotho.

Lesotho ranks highest in the SADC region in having women in political decision making sphere, and this “reminds us that women equal participation is possible and it is importantÀ, excitedly said Gender Links Chief Executive Officer, Colleen Lowe-Morna at the Lesotho SADC Gender Protocol Summit 2014, Maseru Sun Cabanas.