Losing the fight against early marriages in Zambia...
Losing the fight against early marriages in Zambia
Date: January 1, 1970
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A 60-year old man was recently ordered to take his 13-year old ?wife? back to her parents by a magistrate. Her parents were told to place her in a nearby school. In the past it was custom that dictated marriage at puberty. In contemporary Zambia, poverty appears to be the push factor. While there appear to be no complaints from the girls themselves about their early marriages – there has only been one case in Zambia this year where a girl complained she was taken out of school to get married – they expect it and while they may not like it, it is accepted as inevitable.
A 60-year old man was recently ordered to take his 13-year old ‘wife’ back to her parents by a magistrate. Her parents were told to place her in a nearby school.
Had it not been that the girl wanted to stay with her husband and was resisting going back to her home where “there was no food” this would have been yet another story that would have gone unnoticed, considered normal in Zambian society.
Despite all the work by non-governmental organisations to have early marriages legally banned, there are social cultural challenges which negate their efforts including that parents want the dowry that the groom pays for his wife.
At every meeting with chiefs and traditional leaders, promises are made that they will ban two things in their areas of jurisdiction: sexual cleansing (a relative of a dead spouse having sex with the surviving partner to cleanse evil spirits) and early marriages.
But when they get back to their villages, the practices continue, especially early marriages. The chiefs complain that it is easy to agree in the more developed Lusaka but when they get home to rural and semi-rural areas their people threaten to revolt if they are stopped from doing what they have always done.
This is true. In some cases it is the girls who want to run away from the poverty of their homes. They do not go to school, and are basically waiting to get married. Parents find it better that these girls, with their raging hormones, are palmed off to a husband. There is also a view that the more experienced a man, the better a husband he will make as a provider; so the girl is usually married off to a man old enough to be her father or in some cases, her grandfather.
With poverty escalating families do not want the risk of early pregnancy so they prefer to marry off their girls at the onset of puberty. And there are other benefits, including that upon marriage a girl is normally able to help her family either to take in one or more of her of her siblings or use her husbands’ resources and provide financial assistance.
In the past it was custom that dictated marriage at puberty. In contemporary Zambia, poverty appears to be the push factor. While there appear to be no complaints from the girls themselves about their early marriages – there has only been one case in Zambia this year where a girl complained she was taken out of school to get married – they expect it and while they may not like it, it is accepted as inevitable.
A major concern is that marriages take place under customary law which does not entitle the girls to any property if they are divorced or their husband dies. In some tribes a girl is ‘abducted’ and lives in the mans’ house for four days after which she is considered married. In other cases she is given as a replacement if her female relative dies, to maintain the family line. Because the girls marry so early, they are removed from the school system, most often lacking life skills and negotiating power over their bodies and lives.
Critically, girls are leaving or being prevented from attending school before they finish even their primary school education. In Luangwa, a small trading town just outside Lusaka, there are only about three girls in some of the grades because the others have all left school to get married. A school in the central part of Zambia, Kabwe, lost five girls to early marriages last year.
While the situation is not bad in towns and urbanised areas, girls’ education in rural areas is becoming precarious due to early marriages. This is despite the government’s “Education for All” intervention which tries to get girl children to stay in school. The Zambian government has also put out an edict that allows girls who became pregnant or got married to return to school. This however has not been effective as parents have protested about mixing “experienced” girls with their more “innocent” peers.
Teachers and headmasters have tried to encourage married girls to go back to school but very few do, others are reluctant and embarrassment. The school environment is also a hindrance as its rules, timetables and physical conditions might make it difficult for a girl who is a wife and mother to attend classes.
Also, most husbands want their wives to follow tradition, stay at home and undertake household duties. A girl may be unable to go against her husband’s wishes and her husband’s family may refuse to invest in her continued schooling.
The fact that girls who later become mothers themselves will probably disenfranchise their own daughters in a similar manner means there will be a knock on effect for the poverty and development of communities.
Are we fighting a losing battle?
Zarina Geloo is a Zambian journalist. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.
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