Malawi Barometer 2013: Chapter 1 Constitutional and legal rights

Key points

• Women and men gave their government 53% and 58% respectively using the Citizen Score Card (CSC) that gauges citizen perceptions of progress made thus far. There is no SGDI score for this sector.
• The Malawi constitution guarantees equality before the law and prohibits discrimination based on sex or gender.
• Malawi has laws in place to protect women’s rights, including legislation on domestic violence, inheritance and sexual harassment.
• The legal age of marriage is 15 years. Efforts to change the age to 18 have not yielded results. At least half of women aged 20 to 24 married before the age of 18.
• Malawi has child protection courts in three regions and lower courts conduct child-friendly justice hearings.
• Certain customary practices discriminate against women.
• Most widows, unlike widowers, go through humiliating treatment, like wife inheritance and widow cleansing.

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