HIV-positive ‘hyena man’ jailed for two years with hard labour

An HIV-positive Malawian man, Eric Aniva has been sentenced to two years with hard labour after admitting to having sex with 104 women without disclosing his status.

Aniva revealed to BBC a few months ago that he gets paid to have sex with widows and young girls.

The interview led to a call for his arrest by president Peter Mutharika in July. Aniva was over the weekend found guilty under the country’s gender laws of “harmful cultural practice” after two widows testified against him.

Although the president had wanted Aniva tried for defiling young girls, none of his victims volunteered to testify against him. Michael Goba Chipeta, his lawyer, said he would appeal against the conviction and the sentence.

Aniva, who is from the Nsanje district of southern Malawi, was paid from $4 to $7 (£3 to £5) for each sexual intercourse. As required by tradition in Nsanje, a widow must sleep with a “hyena” before she can bury her husband.

In the same vein, if a woman has an abortion, sexual cleansing is also required, while teenage girls, after their first menstruation, are compelled to have sex over a three-day period.

The three-day sex marathon is to mark their passage from childhood to womanhood.

“Most of those I have slept with are girls, school-going girls. Some girls are just 12 or 13 years old, but I prefer them older,” he says.

“All these girls find pleasure in having me as their hyena. They actually are proud and tell other people that this man is a real man, he knows how to please a woman,” Aniva had told BBC in July.