Religious Coercion and Food Insecurity in Malawi – Why American Policymakers Shine a Light on Growing Problems

Imagine having to choose between feeding your family or renouncing your faith. This is not a hypothetical dilemma—it is happening in nations such as Malawi, a small but strategically important country in southeastern Africa. Religious coercion under the guise of humanitarian aid is a direct attack on religious liberty, a fundamental right enshrined in international law and upheld by U.S. foreign policy.

A fellow lawyer who works in the global human rights space asked me to look into an incident in Malawi that shocked my conscience, and I have seen a lot in this space. Responsible nations seem to be doing nothing to stop it from escalating.

This particular incident, and since I started to look into it, this does not seem isolated, involves a social media post by Rev. Fr. Petros Mwale, a Catholic priest in Malawi, describing an alarming incident: an entire village was allegedly given food by an Islamist group—but only after renouncing the belief that Jesus Christ is divine. I’ll have more about this in a moment. Fr. Petros is at St. Martin de Porres Parish, Mzuzu Diocese, but this video was posted by someone claiming to be a Muslim.

If accurate, the fact that this incident was recorded and posted online by an Islamist individual suggests not only an intent to document but possibly to justify or normalize such coercion. This raises questions about whether these tactics are being more widely employed and whether similar incidents are occurring elsewhere under the radar.