The NGO Gender Coordination Network says women should not sacrifice their lives by taking care of Covid-19 patients in their homes.
Chairperson of the Network Barbara Banda has called on women in the country to strictly follow the precautionary measures to avoid contracting the coronavirus.
“Women are also human beings, in that way they can also contract coronavirus if they are not being careful. The problem with our women is that, they are used to calling themselves pillars of their respective families,” she said.
Banda urged women to first consider their lives by isolating themselves from the people that are showing signs of coronavirus.
“Everyone’s life is very important, so I am telling women to also isolate themselves from their friends’ and relatives’ homes and this is a permanent isolation that they can eventually do to protect themselves from not contracting the virus,” she said.
But responding on the matter, one of the women in Mgomwa village of Balaka district Rhoda Maidesi said isolation cannot work for women since their families rely on them for survival.
“Just imagine our husbands and children rely on us daily so that we should wash their clothes, cook for them, take care of them when they are sick and play with them daily,” she said.
Maidesi continued by saying that their lives are in danger due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our lives are in danger to say the truth if care is not taken a lot of women will end up contracting the coronavirus,” she said.
Malawi has recorded 16 cases of the coronavirus. Ten of the 16 recorded cases are female.
