Widow fights Swaziland's King for missing daughter

For the first time in the history of Swaziland, one of the world's few absolute monarchies, a mother has challenged the King's selection of her daughter as a bride.

King Mswati III, educated at Sherborne School in Dorset, already has 10 wives, most selected at annual "reed dances", when teenage virgins parade before him wearing only short beaded skirts. He had to pay a fine of one cow after choosing the 10th last month, because she was aged 17.

This violated his decision to revive the custom of umchwasho – which prohibits girls under 18 having sex, shaking hands with men or wearing trousers – to prevent the spread of Aids. Wife number 10 was added two months after the 34-year-old King had taken wives eight and nine.

After this year's reed dance, a widow, Lindiwe Dlamini, says the monarch wanted her daughter, 18-year-old Zena Mahlangu, as his 11th liphovela, or fiancée. In this land-locked southern African state of only a million people, such recognition is normally considered an honour. But Ms Dlamini, a posts and telecommunications manager, does not want her child to be among the King's wives.

In papers filed in Swaziland's High Court this week, Ms Dlamini gives two reasons why Zena is not suitable as a royal bride. First, she says, Zena's late father was not a member of the Swazi tribe. Second, Zena has a twin brother, and her mother claims Swazi custom prevents the King marrying a twin. She did not believe the King could be party to the "abusive and unlawful abduction" of a child without her mother's consent.

The family says Zena attended this year's reed dance ceremony on 15 September with Miss Swaziland, Nozipho Shabangu. After the dance, both girls were detained for hours at the royal kraal, and introduced to the King, who has ruled since 1986. A week ago, Zena went missing from school. "I was beside myself with worry, especially because Zena is a very considerate child who would never change our arrangement without informing me," her mother says.

The next day she was told that two men claiming to represent King Mswati, had taken Zena to another royal kraal. "When I demanded to know why my child had been abducted, the second respondent just laughed and banged down the phone," Ms Dlamini says. The family has now been informed that Zena has been "assigned royal duties in accordance with Swazi culture and customs".

Ms Dlamini has been to the Royal Swaziland Police, but says she has heard nothing from them. The High Court has not said when, or whether, it will give a decision. The case will further tarnish Swaziland's image as a charming, contented backwater. When civil war and the struggle against apartheid ravaged southern Africa, the kingdom was seen as a stable and fertile enclave where old customs prevailed. White South African tourists went there to gamble in casinos – then forbidden at home – and to escape their country's racial taboos.

But educated Swazis have become increasingly frustrated at the autocratic ways of the King and his clan. There have been no democratic elections in Swaziland since independence from Britain in 1968, student and labour protests are crushed and political freedoms are non-existent. Nor has the country escaped southern Africa's twin scourges, Aids and drought. About 150,000 Swazis are reckoned to be on the brink of starvation.

Months ago, the government announced it would buy King Mswati a luxury private jet for £26.5m, nine times the impoverished country's deficit. After protests, at home and from international aid donors, the plan was dropped.