Women’r rights groups in Malawi have condemned the two-year sentence handed to a HIV positive man who had sex with more than 100 women without disclosing his status, saying it is too lenient and would not deter would-be offenders.
Eric Aniva, commonly known as ‘hyena man’, was sentenced to two years in prison with hard labour for his crime.
In Malawi, hynena men are people hired to sleep with widows to rid them of their husbands’ spirits, and can also be hired by parents to hace sex with their daughters to “clean out the dust” of childhood and prepare them for marriage.
The sexual initiation ritual is one of several traditional practices that campaigners against child marriage are trying to eradicate in the southern African nation where half of girls are wed before they reach 18.
In 2015, Malawi raised the legal marrying age from 15 to 18 which activists hoped would end early sexual initiations.
Aniva admitted to British broadcaster the BBC in July that he had not disclosed his HIV status before he had sex with more than 100 young girls and women.
