By CHARLES SIMENGWA –

THE differential sentencing of women convicted of killing their spouses is now raising eyebrows in members of the public.
Wildly contrasting jail terms have become commonplace in court matters involving women accused of ending the lives of their husbands, and they are raising the prospect of stirring controversy in Zambia’s judicial system.
There is a debate swelling online on ‘light’ sentences meted out to some convicts; the severity, or lack of it, of the punishment imposed on people who have committed a similar crime, but get off with totally different penalties.
The justification one may expect – at any time – from the judges and defence lawyers is that crimes, no matter how related, are not caused in similar circumstances.
Put differently, people have varying motivations for murdering their spouses. From a review of some judgements, some abused women are pushed into killing their spouses in self-defence.
The methods they employ in getting rid of their husbands seem to matter less than the reasons for taking to such repulsive actions.
Consider a housewife of Solwezi, in North-Western Province, who has received a 20-year prison sentence for stabbing her husband to death with a knife.
Kitwe High Court Judge Chilombo Phiri recently sent to the gaol Idah Mwanapabo, who was charged with murder after she killed Kelvin Mikula on June 5, last year.
The couple fought after Mr Mikula asked his wife, who was in a drunken state, where she had been the whole day.
Delivering judgement, Ms Justice Phiri said the accused caused the death of Mr Mikula when she stabbed him with a knife in the chest, which was an unlawful act.
She was satisfied that Mwanapabo acted with the deliberate intention of killing her husband, and dismissed her testimony that she was badly beaten by the deceased.
The court established that she stabbed Mr Mikula when the fight between the two had long ended.  In other words, she was not under any attack at the time she stabbed the deceased and there was thus no need to use force.
Contrast this with a 22-year-old woman of Luwingu District, in Northern Province, who in 2014 was imprisoned for five years, with hard labour, for killing her husband when the two differed over food.
Ndola High Court judge Petronella Ngulube, sitting in Kasama in September, convicted Ruth Musonda after she pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
According to the particulars of the offence, Musonda of Mwela Village had caused the death of her husband, Kelvin Kaoma after she beat him with a pounding stick.
Ms Justice Ngulube was satisfied that Musonda’s acts of violence resulted in the death of her husband, and she handed her the five-year jail term.
Defence lawyer, Keith Katazo asked the court for ‘maximum’ leniency on Musonda as she was a “first offender” who was also remorseful for causing the death of her husband.
A vital element of the investigation was that the deceased usually beat up his wife. One may wish to know if there had ever been any recourse to justice before Mr Kaoma’s life was terminated.
What is certain, though, is that he was killed in a brutal way. Musonda pushed her husband who dropped down on the ground and she thereafter hit him on the head with a pounding stick until he lost consciousness.
The court learnt that Mr Kaoma died of bleeding in the brain.
Think about this, too. The Ndola High Court in December, 2010 sentenced a 41-year-old woman of Luanshya to death for killing her husband of 24 years, Timothy Mwansa, using a pounding stick.
Supreme Court Judge Muyinda Wanki, sitting as Ndola High Court judge, sentenced Jennifer Chipasha, a trader of Mpatamatu Township, to death after he convicted her of murder.
According to the evidence in court, the couple had six children and ran some businesses together.
They had two houses, one in which they lived and another for storing the merchandise that they sold.
On May 25 the previous year, Chipasha had given her husband K20, 000 to travel to Nakonde to buy beans and groundnuts.
The day before Mr Mwansa died, the children informed Chipasha that their father had returned home and she later established that he had only bought rice and beans worth K1, 500.
The irate Chipasha embarked on a search for her husband in bars he usually visited and informed a number of people that she was going to kill him using a pounding stick once she got hold of him.
In his judgement, Mr Justice Wanki said the prosecution had proved that the deceased was beaten by a pounding stick which resulted in injuries that killed him.
“No one saw the accused beating her husband with a pounding stick, but she has been linked to the offence by circumstantial evidence which shows that she was not happy with the way her husband handled the money.
“She told numerous people that she was going to kill him with a pounding stick once she found him,” he said.
Mr Justice Wanki said Chipasha was the last person to be seen with her husband, and that it was difficult to believe her testimony that he fell when she pushed the door to the bathroom where he was.
The court determined that the injuries Mr Mwansa sustained could not result from a fall.
Defence lawyer Kelvin Msoni typically said Chipasha was a “first offender” and that some of her children were young and needed parental care.
According to Mr Msoni, Chipasha loved her husband and regretted causing his death, which she described as punishment enough.
This is perhaps where the paradox manifests. These cases bear similar features, but a lay person would regard the starkly different judgements as strange or, worse, repugnant.
Such judgements may further fuel the perception that judges interpret ‘provocative acts’ using double standards based on gender ideologies.
The enduring belief is that men are the drivers of partner violence, which sometimes results in their being killed by their ‘abused’ wives.
Part of the defence offered on behalf of women caught up in such situations is that they do not fall into the bracket of a reasonable man who is expected, upon being provoked, to react in the heat of the moment.
There are some people who argue that women in Zambia are socialised not to react to their husband’s provocative acts on the basis of cultural values.
A research by Charles Mbita in 2012 observes in part that “it is important to remember the essential rationality of most women who commit crime, for to label them irrational or more specifically mad, as society would want to do, is more complex and dangerous, more damaging in its restrictions, and more wide-ranging in its implications.”
From the statutory provisions and case law, provocation refers to the killing of another in the heat of passion arising from loss of self-control. Additionally, the offended person must have lost control as a direct result of an unlawful act committed by the victim.
For a female offender to successfully plead provocation, it should be proved that any other ‘ordinary person’ in the position of the accused would have lost self-control and reacted as the accused did.
But from where Mr Mbita stands, this discriminates against women offenders in Zambia, as they are socialised not to express any opposition to their spouses, but to “suffer in silence”.
Similarly, the overriding argument by some leading protagonists of the women movement is that the victims are mostly vulnerable and often in a weaker state to defend themselves.
It is, however, the brutality with which some men have met their death which at any time would numb one’s mind, more so that abused women have the liberty to seek shelter under the available laws.
As a veritable example, Section 3 of the Anti-Gender Based Violence Act of 2011 defines ‘a place of safety’ as ‘premises where the welfare of a victim of gender-based violence is assured’.
Section 5(b) of the Act imposes a duty on police officers, labour inspectors, social workers, medical and legal practitioners, nurses, religious leaders, traditional leaders, and teachers alike, to inform victims of gender-based violence of their rights and on how to obtain a place of safety, or shelter.
It is also interesting to note that according to Chapter Six, Section 26(4) of the Penal Code, “a person convicted of manslaughter or a misdemeanour may be sentenced to a fine in addition to or instead of imprisonment”.
This means that this penalty, which is frowned upon by many people, is in fact sanctioned by the laws of the land.
The controversy on whether or not women found guilty of killing their spouses are “mostly getting away with light sentences” is, therefore, far from over.