Watch – “For all those who suffer in silence, and for all those women who die, every day, in domestic violence” – Josina Machel

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Watch – “For all those who suffer in silence, and for all those women who die, every day, in domestic violence” – Josina Machel

7:11 CAT | 22 Feb 2017

City Press (File photo) / Josina Machel

A Maputo court on Tuesday sentenced the man who blinded Josina Machel, daughter of Mozambique’s first President, Samora Machel, to a prison sentence of three years and four months for acts of serious physical and psychological violence.

The man, Rofino Licuco, was Josina’s boyfriend between 2012 and 2015. On 17 October 2015 he beat her on the face so badly that she was blinded in her right eye.

Passing sentence, the Kampfumo urban district court suspended the prison sentence for five years, on the grounds that Licuco is a first offender. It also ordered him to pay Josina compensation of 200 million meticais (about 2.9 million US dollars) and to reimburse her for all the costs of her medical treatment.

If Licuco does not pay the compensation within 30 days, the prison sentence will be executed. However, matters could be delayed for much longer if Licuco appeals against the sentence. He has five days in which to appeal, and that will have the effect of suspending the entire sentence including the compensation.

The Machel family was disappointed that the court opted to suspend the sentence. Speaking at a press conference, Josina’s mother, former education minister Graca Machel, said “I am pleased that he was convicted, but I am not pleased that the sentence was suspended. I wanted him to go to prison. The message should be sent out that, if a man assaults a woman, he will go to jail”.

Nonetheless, Josina regarded the verdict as a victory “which should be celebrated by all women who are physically, verbally, financially or sexually abused”. She offered this victory “for all those who suffer in silence, and for all those women who die, every day, in domestic violence”.

Josina recalled that, after she entered Maputo Central Hospital the night of the beating, initially she was left entirely alone, and it took four hours before hospital staff contacted the Machel family. The hospital did inform the police station on the premises, and there and then Josina laid her first complaint against Licuco.

Josina then went to see eye specialists in Barcelona. They gave her the bad news that the injury was very deep, and the doctors were unable to replace the retina in her right eye.

When she returned to Maputo, she found that the initial complaint she had made to the police and the clinical report on her condition made at Maputo Central Hospital had mysteriously gone missing. With the help of sympathetic medical staff she had to reconstitute her case file.

“She tripped and fell”

She was determined that her assailant should be prosecuted – even though she found the legal proceedings “intrusive and humiliating”. For Licuco denied all responsibility for Josina’s injuries. He said she had been drinking, and “she tripped and fell”.

Repeatedly, Josina had to relive the night of the assault, explaining exactly what had happened. She was examined by eight separate doctors. The court concluded that the weight of the medical evidence was clearly that Josina had suffered a severe assault.

Her mother attacked the “character assassination” of Josina that had occurred in some of the Mozambican press, who had gleefully printed Licuco’s version of events, claiming that Josina had fabricated the assault.

“Converting the victim into the guilty party”

Graca Machel pointed out that none of these papers ever contacted the Machel family to hear Josina’s side of the story. “They broke a basic rule of journalism”, she accused, and were “converting the victim into the guilty party”.

One particularly absurd claim in some of the media was that the case had already been decided in Licuco’s favour in a South African court, as if a foreign court somehow has jurisdiction over a violent event that happened in Mozambique.

According to Josina’s lawyer, Abdul Carimo, the South African case was an application by Josina for a restraining order against Licuco whom she believed was following her in South Africa. The South African court declined to grant the order. This has no bearing whatever on the assault case.

Josina’s brother, Samora Jr (“Samito”), pointed out that the damage done to her sister’s eyesight means that there are tasks, such as operating computers, that Josina can no longer do unaided. “She will need support for the rest of her life”, he said.

Josina plans to use the compensation from Licuco to help other abused women. She will give it to the NGO Kuhluka, which she set up to support women who are the victims of gender-based violence, and to give them a voice.