The ManicaPost
Tatenda Makombe
There has been a lot of debate on child marriages to date yet there is another perspective that is very important that is yet to be looked at extensively if the quest to eradicate this evil is to be achieved.
The general consensus is that when a child is married, the child is being forced into the marriage yet there are some children who get married willingly. While it is true that the majority of documented cases of child marriages are largely forced, this truth is not necessarily the whole truth.
There are cases in which marginalised or uninformed children marry voluntarily without being forced by elderly members of their families. It is common knowledge that the scourge of the AIDS pandemic has left many orphaned children in the care of uncaring relatives or in some cases as the heads of their own families.
Some children may also fail to get the opportunity to pursue secondary school education and see child marriage as an easier route out of their misery unknowingly that they would be like in the words of an old adage, jumping from the frying pan onto the fire.
It is equally important to observe that some children may feel unwanted at home and because of their immaturity may think that living with an elderly man who promises them the world is a better option.
I had a rare opportunity to have a heart to heart talk with a girl who got married at fifteen and this has since broadened my view on child marriages. In her narration this child said that she was orphaned and her brother lived with her grandmother whom she claimed asked her to drop out of school as she could not afford to pay school fees for both her brother and herself.
While she was asked to drop out of school, her brother continued to attend school because, according to the grandmother, he is a boy. According to this girl since she was left idle, she saw marriage as her only solution out of her idleness. As I write this article she is a 15-year-old child mother of a one-year-old baby. This is a classical example of a child parenting another child.
Voluntary child marriage or forced child marriage are the same evil and despicable practice that should be fought and brought to an end.
In most farming communities in rural Zimbabwe there is a vicious circle of voluntary child marriages. In these areas commonly referred to as “Makomboni” from the word Compound, a colonial term which used to refer to where African farm labourers lived; the average marriage age for women is 13-16 years.
In these areas there is a culture that embraces child marriages and that finds nothing sinister about the practice. Quite a number of girls that are raised in these areas do not continue with their studies beyond primary school. Once they finish grade seven they get married.
I spoke to one social commentator who argued that the problem of child marriages is not something that can be adequately solved by periodic awareness campaigns on the day of the African child and symposiums in leafy expensive hotels but it is an issue that requires a paradigm shift in the way certain communities view child marriage.
A contractor with a local NGO that works with children in the farming communities of the Vumba and Odzi areas argued that, if the mother of the child we are trying to protect was a child mother herself and the same was the fate of the mother’s mother then that means we have three generations of people who see nothing wrong with the practice of child marriages.
This vicious circle of volunteer child marriage has to stop if the ongoing crusade against child marriages is to be a complete success.
Parents or guardians who married early are more likely to accept the lobola of their minor children and because of this cases of voluntary child marriages often go unreported. Whether a child is forced into marriage or gets in willingly, the girl’s childhood abruptly ends and her health and future get in jeopardy.
It is in this light that I feel that if we are serious about eradicating child marriages there is need for research on this aspect of children who willingly get married prematurely.
I believe the highest percentage of girls that are entering into child marriages is of girls that are willingly getting married and this is the untold story-the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle that has been elusive in the fight against child marriages.
