Fulata Moyo

Fulata Lusungu Mbano Moyo is a Malawian systematic and feminist theologian who is an advocate for gender justice. Moyo has written over twenty-eight journal articles. She is known for her contributions to African women's theology, contextual biblical studies, and the promotion of gender justice within church and society. Moyo has served in academic institutions, ecumenical organizations, and international initiatives addressing issues of gender, religion, HIV/AIDS, human trafficking and sexual exploitation. She also worked with Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza on feminist hermeneutics. In 2018, she was appointed to an independent expert panel to review UNAIDS policies and processes for addressing and preventing harassment. In 2020, Moyo founded "STREAM", a US registered NGO that supports and mentors survivors of sex trafficking, which in 2021 was registered in Malawi as Thimlela-STREAM.

Early life and education Fulata Mbano was born in northern Malawi, a member of the Ngoni people from Mzimba District. Her great grandfather, Songea, was a warrior chief. Her father started his own church after he was not accepted in mainline churches due to his polygamy. She was a research fellow at Yale University's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS. She was trained in Contextual Bible Studies when she became involved in the Tamar Campaign, which sought to address violence against women and children using contextual study of the Bible. She encouraged churches to adopt the "Thursdays in Black" campaign against rape and violence, which was inspired by the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina who protested at the Plaza de Mayo on Thursdays, Women in Black in Israel and the women in Rwanda, DRC and Bosnia who were already articulating their experience of rape as a weapon of war. In 2018, she was appointed to an independent expert panel to review UNAIDS policies and processes for addressing and preventing harassment.

In 2020, Moyo founded "STREAM", a US registered NGO that supports and mentors survivors of sex trafficking, which in 2021 was registered in Malawi as Thimlela-STREAM to focus on prevention, protection and mitigation of human trafficking that focusses on the survivors. For prevention purposes, Thimlela-STREAM started with the empowerment of women through entrepreneurship baking bread for business in Chindindi and Ndonda communities in Mzimba District, Northern Malawi. In Malawi, Mzimba is one of the hot spots of human trafficking that has also become a human trafficking corridor between East Africa and South Africa. She served as the Pan-African General Coordinator of the Circle from 2007 to 2013. As a member of faculty at University of Malawi, she served as the Secretary of the Board of Diploma in Theological Studies in 1996, and a Deputy Director of the Center of Conflict Resolution at University of Malawi Her writings have predominantly addressed religious and cultural influences on gender construction and women's sexuality.

Moyo was a contributor to AfricaPraying : a handbook on HIV-AIDS sensitive sermon guidelines and liturgy, published in 2003. She co-edited Women Writing Africa: Eastern African Region, published by Feminist Press in 2007.

Selected publications Journal articles

Moyo, Fulata Lusungu (2006), “’When the Telling Itself is a Taboo’: The Phoebe Practice,“ Religion in Malawi No. 13, 16-22, reprinted in Jonathan S. Nkhoma, Rhodian Munyenyembe and Hany Longwe (eds), Mission in Malawi. Essays in Honour of Klaus Fiedler, Mzuzu: Mzuni Press, 2021, 449-463.

Book chapters

Moyo, Fulata Lusungu (2017). "'Ukugqiba inkaba'—Burying the Umbilical Cord: An African Indigenous Ecofeminist Perspective on Incarnation". In Grace Ji-Sun Kim; Hilda P. Koster (eds.). Planetary Solidarity: Global Women's Voices on Christian Doctrine and Climate Justice. Fortress Press. pp. 179–192.

Desmond Tutu, Humour and Social Justice, Sarojini Nadar, Tinyiko Maluleke, Dietrich Werner, Vicentia Kgabe & Rudolf Heinz (Eds), Ecumenical Encounters with Desmond Tutu: Visions for Justice, Dignity and Peace, Regnum Books/UWC Press, 2022, (p139-143)

Lockdown and Sexual Exploitation, Chammah J. Kaunda (Ed.), World Christianity and Covid-19: Looking Back and Looking Forward, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, (pp133–149).

Personal life Moyo was married to Solomon Moyo until his death from liver cancer in 1999. She has written about her experience of widowhood.