By Ngoni Shumba.
MUTARE, Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – Mercy left her in-laws’ home in rural Bindura with a 2kg container of washing powder, a laundry bag and her 11-month old daughter strapped to her back. It appeared obvious that she was going down to the river to do her laundry.
Seven hours later, she had not returned and village search parties were combing the area for the 25-year-old mother of five they had known since her marriage 10 years ago.
But by then she was safely in her Mutare aunt’s home, more than 300 kilometres away.
She was tired of the marriage and wanted out. Her aunt’s child she had grown up playing with had moved ahead with life settling in their careers and only now beginning to consider marriage.
But having lost both her parents orphaned by six she can’t be sheltered here for long and will soon be shipped back into a marriage that was consummated by rape and an unplanned pregnancy that ended her pursuit of an education.
“I never loved my husband and l only accepted her love proposals because l wanted to fit in with my form two classmates but he then went on to rape and impregnate me,” Mercy said.
“I felt pity for him and spared him a 15-year jail term by marrying him instead of reporting him to the police,” she says about the favour that she now regrets ever making.
Mercy’s tale is all too familiar.
Thousands of child brides feel trapped and given a chance are fleeing their marriages in droves at the back of abuse and regret.
Former popular teenage television presenter who had a very promising future, Makanaka Wakatama is the face of these former child brides.
Eloping at 16 and bearing two children before growing out of the teen years she back with deep regret.
Delivering by caesarean operations and going under the knife a further four times due to depression linked health complications her marriage was accompanied by a lot of painful moments.
Like Makanaka almost all girls we met who married very young dropped out of school, and they often faced health problems as a result of early pregnancy.
Many frequently confronted abuse and violence within their new home and have little hope of escaping a life of poverty.
Girls’ and women’s rights activists say regret is inevitable considering their abuse, lost educational opportunities and demands of marriage for such young minds and bodies.
Women’s Action and Support Centre (WASC) director Musline Munodawafa said some of the in-laws would even deliberately abuse the child brides to force them out of the family.
“We have heard of cases in which the in-laws would abuse or neglect these child brides so that they would return to their homes,” Munodawafa said.
The WASC director also said some would regret upon the realisation that there is a better life beyond their early marriage.
“Most often regret because they would have been shown an alternative…some will run away because they would have heard something and believe that they can be something better.
“When you increase access to information it opens up their minds and begin to weigh their options,” Munodawafa said.
She however bemoaned the absence of supporting infrastructure and institutions to care for the young mothers who would have fled the abusive unions so that they can get a second chance education or vocational skills.
“We don’t have adequate infrastructure as a nation, there used to be some centres in the 1980s but at the moment there is not much and we have to implore families to relook at their values and help these young girls even when there is a pregnancy.
“Parents lets rethink this, this is our child. Send her back to school. Let us minimise our losses. Let us interrupt the cycle of poverty that would be starting,” Munodawafa said.
Peace Building and Capacity Development Foundation (PACDEF) programs coordinator Nyasha Chidau said there often will be a disconnect between the girl’s expectations and what she can achieve which often frustrates her into regretting the decision.
“The family would have failed before it would have even began – marriage is for women and not girls. She would not have been trained enough or have the maturity to be a mother not only to her children but the whole clan
“The girl would be confused and would be unable to assume her roles. So she will actually be confused won’t be able to assume her roles. So there will be frustration because of expectations and ability,” Chidau said.
Zimbabwe is adjudged one of the 41 countries in the world with an unacceptable rate of child marriages.
According to a 2012 report based on data collected by the United Nations Population Fund, during the years 2000-2011, the country’s prevalence of child marriage was at 31%.
According to the report, Mashonaland Central tops with 50 percent. Mashonaland West has 42 percent, Masvingo 39 percent, Mashonaland East 36 percent, Midlands 31 percent, Manicaland 30 percent, Matabeleland North 27 percent, Harare 19 percent, Matabeleland South 18 percent and Bulawayo 10 percent.
Child marriage in the country is driven by religious and cultural beliefs, often exacerbated by poverty.
About 720 million women and girls were married before 18 around the world, of which approximately 250 million girls married before they reached age 15 according to UNICEF.
125 million of child brides are in Africa, the UN body says.
This is in spite that the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that marriage should be ‘entered only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses’.
Going by this definition and taking into consideration the stands of the Convention on the Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which holds that children below 18 years should not be allowed to get married because they do not have full maturity and capacity to act, one will have every reason to stand against child marriages-any union in this circumstances will be considered as forced marriage.
Despite the fact that all sub-Saharan African countries, except Somalia, are signatories to the Charter on Rights of a Child, Sub-Saharan Africa has the second highest rate of early and forced marriage, at 38 percent, according to statistics from Plan International.
14.3 million girls in this region are married before they reach 18. Studies show that the average age of marriage in this region remains among the world’s lowest and the percentage of adolescent mothers the world’s highest.
While the UN agency notes that child marriage on the continent has declined by 10 percent in the past 25 years, it reports that if population growth persists at its current rate, “half of the world’s child brides in 2050 will be African.”
ZimRights chairperson Passmore Nyakureba says Zimbabwe’s campaign to end the practice received a major boost when Loveness Mudzuru, 20, and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi, 19, successfully launched a challenge to the government’s Marriage Act, claiming that it discriminated against girls by setting the minimum age to marry at 16 for them but 18 for men.
Both Mudzuru and Tsopodzi were married at age 16.
“That ruling breathes hope into this campaign because researches show that where something is deemed to be illegal about 80 percent of the population would be deterred meaning we will have to deal with a defiant 20 percent,” Nyakureba said.
The ruling places the country among 33 African countries that have set the minimum age for marriage at 18 and it now battles to enforce the law.
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