(2017) 1 African Human Rights Yearbook 17 Violence against women has also come under the radar of a number of countries. Benin’s Prevention and Repression of Violence against Women Act 2011 gives women protection against domestic violence, FGM, forced marriages and other traditional harmful practices against women. In Guinea Bissau and Angola, the Domestic Violence Act 2011 criminalises domestic violence as a public offence reportable to the police by anyone. Liberia’s Rape Amendment Act raises the age of statutory rape to 18 years and expands the definition of rape to include sodomy rape and rape by instrumentality, thereby making rape genderneutral so that a woman can also be criminally liable for perpetrating rape upon a man or another woman. Namibia’s Combating of Domestic Violence Act 2003 broadly defines domestic violence to embrace physical, sexual, economic, verbal, emotional and psychological violence, intimidation and harassment. The Act defines rape as the intentional commission of a sexual act under coercive circumstances, and removes marriage or other relationship as a defence to a rape charge. In 2011 Guinea Bissau passed a law banning FGM. Ghana’s Criminal Code Amendment Law 2012 punishes perpetrator and accomplice of female circumcision. In 2015 The Gambia enacted a law criminalising female genital circumcision. Malawi’s Deceased Estates (Wills, Inheritance and Protection) Act 2011 repeals the earlier contentious law on the subject and addresses the predicament of widows and children regarding the administration of deceased estates. These legislative measures taken in the several countries appear to be based on the belief that fear of prosecution and imprisonment would deter some forms of violence against women. But it is doubtful that these measures in and by themselves sufficiently address the issue of extrajudicial killings of women in the context of intimate partner relations. Further, domestic violence statutes deal with only aspects of domestic violence and, arguably, problems of extrajudicial killings that are merely consequential to other forms of violence. The statutes are likely to be of little help in cases of purposive extrajudicial killings of women. In South Africa, at least, feminists argue that the law has not made the link between the law’s protection of women and the court’s treatment of perpetrators of gender violence. They contend that femicide is usually the tragic fate of an abused woman who has been trapped in a dangerous relationship and whom the law was unable to protect, and that the courts often treat such killings leniently.57 Most African countries have at least two systems of law, statutory and customary (defined in some countries as including Muslim law). Problems, especially in personal law matters, often emerge due to the co-existence and operation side by side of both systems.58 Conflicts and 57 J Fedler et al ‘Beyond the facelift: the legal system’s need for a change of heart’ in Y Park et al (eds) Reclaiming women’s spaces: new perspectives on violence against women and sheltering in South Africa (NISAA Institute for Women’s Development: Johannesburg 2000) 135. 58 C Anyangwe ‘The withering away of African indigenous law and judicial system’ (1998) Zambia Law Journal, Special Edition 46; J Stewart & A Armstrong (eds) The legal situation of women in Southern Africa (University of Zimbabwe: Harare 1990).