Chief in trouble for using sex as collateral to allocate land to a woman

Breach of an oral agreement? Rumphi's highest chief, Chikulamayembe, told one of his group village heads, a man named Jalira, to give land to a woman he had sex with for seven months on the condition that he also give her land.

Tiyeni Nkhonjera, who is 33 years old, said after today's ruling that everything started in May when she offered the GVH K150,000 for land, but the traditional leader made the sexual offer instead.

"He said that he would take the money out of the account every time we had sex. "After a few meetings, though, GVH Jalira sold the land to someone else," Nkhonjera says.

So, when the contract was broken and people stopped trusting each other, Nkhonjera told the Chikulamayembe women's forum, which told Paramount chief Chikulamayembe himself. In his decision, the paramount chief said that Nkhonjera has a right to the land she paid for but didn't get because the contract was broken.

Since then, the Tumbuka chief has warned traditional leaders not to abuse women sexually or use their power in other ways to take advantage of them.