The ManicaPost
Freedom Mutanda Post Correspondent
Last Wednesday was International Day for Women. As we celebrate that day, let us pause for a moment about the girl child who is subjected to early marriages.
Vivian Muduri (not her real name) plays hide-and-seek with girls of her age oblivious of the differences that are evident between her and her friends. Vivian is 15 and she was supposed to be in Form 2 this year. As the ball bounces on her belly she winces and the other girls laugh.
She is pregnant and stays with a 37 year old general hand who stays at Section 5 at Rating Investments, Middle Sabi.
‘‘Please don’t play with us anymore for you are now Mai Mtengu!’’ They laugh again in that infectious way that as an adult, you can’t help but grin but you do that secretly lest some people misconstrue that as a sarcastic smile.
Vivian Muduri is one of scores of young girls barely out of their teens who find themselves for one reason or another married before they reach the age of majority.
An AFM pastor, Togarepi Chiumba, says poverty and the farm setting that these girls find themselves in, are some of the drivers for child marriages in Middle Sabi.
‘‘Poverty is endemic in the farms. Education is a luxury that very few girls are allowed to pursue. Check with the head at Sabi Valley School and he will tell you nearly half of Grade 7 female graduates make it to secondary school. Because of that, child marriages become a thorn in the flesh for Chipangayi residents,’’ the pastor said.
Picture this: a young man, Brian (22) has a sexual relationship with a 14 year old girl. His relationship is known to his friend. Somehow, he gets imprisoned for stealing water pipes and serves time for close to two years before he is released. Brian used to stay at Section 9 Middle Sabi.
On coming back, he sees his ‘wife’ pregnant and his friend is responsible as she is now staying with him. He confronts the friend whose mother says it was an unfortunate incident but the girl could not wait for someone who was incarcerated. That was the final straw. The jail bird stabbed his friend’s mother on the stomach.
Further investigations revealed that Brian and his friend were in an intimate relationship with the juvenile at the same time. She was a victim of circumstances. However, Brian is at Chikurubi Mximum Security Prison serving 21 years there for attempted murder.
Last year, a Form 1 student aged 14 fell pregnant and she eloped to a man who used to build a house for her maternal grandmother. Charity (14) is unaware of her pregnant status because she is a child. Her mother and father are separated. When the father said it must be a police case, the grandmother was up in arms telling him that he had no business interfering as he never paid bride price. The grapevine has it that the perpetrator could have been offered the girl as payment for having built the house.
Charity was quickly whisked away from Middle Sabi for the investigations to reach a dead end.
Over the weekend, a Grade 6 pupil (15) eloped to a 21 year old young man. When her father was contacted by school authorities, he wasn’t forthcoming. Apparently, he wants his hands greased with bride price. Another 15 year old joins the long list of child marriages that Zimbabwe seems to be gaining notoriety on.
What does society say about it? A prominent nurse in the area said Chipangayi was one of the areas hardest hit by HIV/AIDS in the country for the age group 15-49 but it appeared most parents and opinion leaders continued to put their noses in the sand pretending that everything was all right.
‘‘HIV/AIDS is wreaking havoc in Middle Sabi and the scourge of child marriages exacerbates the situation. Parents seem to turn a blind eye when their under age child gets involved with elderly men. Statistics are clear; many girls are infected and still there is no respite in terms of cases of child marriages,’’ he said.
According to UNICEF, 1 in 3 girls in Zimbabwe is married before their 18th birthday; this is largely driven by extreme poverty levels. According to the United Nations body, in 2016, 4% of girl children were married by age 15 while 34% of girls were married by age 18. This is scandalous. While this is happening, no one raises a red flag. We are allowing our girl children to be victims of cervix cancer and any other disease that attacks women who have early child births.
While many leaders think it is poverty that pushes girls to get married early, it is instructive to note that religion plays a part in normalizing the abnormal. Traditional religion tends to look at the girl child as one who should shoulder the burden of household chores and when push comes to shove, it must be the girl child who has to be sacrificed.
If there is an illness in the family, it is the girl child who must nurse and care for him/her.
‘‘Education liberates girls and boys but in this area, the proliferation of cultic institutions has resulted in teenage girls rushing to get married with disastrous consequences to their health in the long run. Yesterday, a young woman who got married at 15 lost her battle to cervical cancer. She was 24 and not many people would link her death with her early marriage and subsequent early pregnancy. It’s sad,’’ said a sage who requested anonymity but has been in Middle Sabi since 1993.
It is easy to quickly blame the government for any misfortune that befalls people; now is the time to make the life of the girl child more amenable and we see the girls live up to 25 before they walk down the aisle.
An idle mind is the devil’s workshop; the age old adage holds true to these young girls who are forced to drop out of school for one reason or another. Communities wail about lack of funding.
‘‘Everyone has a skill or talent. Why don’t we have a centre for skills development at the Chipangayi Service Centre. Some would learn Building, Carpentry, Sewing, Welding and Beauty.
“Those who are into sport can have coaches drilling them. We may have a Mighty Warrior coming from Chipangayi. Sport can financially liberate the girl child. Development partners can come in but a change in the mindset of parents is of paramount importance,’’ James Dhube, the head of a local secondary school weighed in.
Counselling is another way of motivating the girl child to reach for the sky and that is where the churches, traditional leaders and former residents who have made it in life come in at gatherings or social occasions and spread their gospel of empowering the girl child.
A social scientist, Richard Sikoya said, although cultural practices disadvantage the girl child, it is important to appreciate that culture is dynamic.
‘‘Chipinge has many challenges with respect to child marriages. In light of the January 2016 landmark ruling, there could be an urgent need to carry out outreach programmes that ropes in traditional leaders, teachers and other opinion leaders and sensitise people on why they must hasten the demise of girls by shepherding them into marriage. However, it is a massive task which calls upon all stakeholders to pull their resources together and pull in one direction. The police has to be given teeth and not for people to shield perpetrators,’’ Richard Sikoya said.
Due to the upsurge of ‘‘Majoni joni’’ girls find themselves enticed by trinkets and as a result they are married at an early and their equally young husbands leave them at home and go to ‘‘Egoli’’ in search of greener pastures.
In one instance, a young man left two teenage wives and went to Durban, South Africa. He had another tryst with a Zulu woman; he was stabbed apparently at the instigation of his Zulu wife.
He returned home a dead man. Child marriages can result in heart rending stories.
Alderman Phibeon Machuwaire, the councillor for the area, said input has to come from all stakeholders as the vulnerable group continues to sing the blues.
‘‘There is a never one size fits all scenario. What may be a success in other areas could be a failure in other parts of the country. Middle Sabi is a unique because it is a melting pot. Almost all districts of the nation are represented here and they have different customs,’’ he said.
It remains to be seen whether the stakeholders will put a stop to the rampant child marriages in Middle Sabi that put the girl child at the epicentre of HIV/AIDS and other dangerous sexual infections.
