get involved Donate

Tag Archive: Zimbabwe

  1. Girls’ Education in Zimbabwe

    1 Comment

    Sixteen-year-old Rose loves reading. When the Woman Advocacy Project (WAP) met her last June in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, she was in the middle of a novel from her favorite series, The Hardy Boys. Rose dropped out of school last year because her family was unable to afford her school fees, which amount to roughly $150 per term, including transport. “When I stopped going to school I was so pained. I was so affected because I’m good at school,” Rose told WAP. Now she spends her time reading novels. “Sometimes, I visit my friends who are still in school and ask them what they are learning.”

    As a new school term begins this month in Harare, I find myself thinking about Rose and the many girls like her whom WAP interviewed—girls who left school prematurely because they could not afford to continue their educations.

    Zimbabwe once boasted one of Africa’s strongest educational systems, but years of economic stagnation have led to a steady decline in the country’s schools and universities, which suffer from overcrowding and a critical shortage of teachers. Many teachers have joined the third of Zimbabweans who have left the country in order to seek out work that earns them higher salaries abroad.

    According to the United Nations Girls Education Initiative, the cost of education relative to average household income is extremely high in Zimbabwe. Over the past two decades, dropout rates—particularly for girls—have steadily increased. Zimbabwe’s educational system includes seven grades of primary school and six upper levels (called Forms) of secondary school. Girls and boys are equally likely to complete primary school, but by the time they reach secondary education, the number of girls in attendance relative to boys drops by half. Poor girls in rural areas are particularly likely to leave school, since daughters can bring income into their families through lobola (bride price) if they marry.

    Globally, girls with little or no education are three times more likely to marry by the age of eighteenthan girls who reach secondary school. WAP’s research suggests that dropping out of school is both a cause and a consequence of child marriage. When a girl leaves school, she becomes more vulnerable to marriage: this vulnerability can be caused by factors such as family pressure or the fact that being out of school supports the perception that she is of marriageable age. On the other side of the equation, marriage and pregnancy almost always end a girl’s education permanently. In this scenario, a girl’s education can be curtailed because her husband does not permit her to go to school, because she lacks the funds to support her education financially, or because she is needed to stay home to care for children and the household.

    For my final post, I’d like to share a small selection of the stories of women and girls who spoke to WAP about their experiences in school, the value of Preschool Program for Toddlers, and their hopes and ambitions for the future.

     

    Dorcas

    Seventeen-year-old Dorcas was one of the first young women I met after arriving in Harare. She burst into tears when I asked if she was in school. Dorcas completed her Ordinary Level but could not afford to sit the final exam. She now owes the school over $1,000 in overdue fees.

    Her favorite subject in school was Food and Nutrition; she had hoped to become a journalist after graduation.


    Neneris

    Nineteen-year-old Neneris left school last year after her family became unable to pay her fees. They still owe the school $150.  “I was in Form 4; I would like to go back to school,”Neneris told WAP. Her favorite subjects were Commerce and Math; she had hoped to one-day become a bank teller. “It would have been a good job,” she explained. Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate is currently over 85%.  Like many of the women with whom WAP works, Nenerisis unemployed. She now spends her time learning to plait hair.

     

    Penelope

    Fifteen-year-old Penelope left school last year, when she was in Grade 7, because her family was unable to afford her school fees. “Now I just sit. I want to go back to school,” she told WAP.

     

    Anashe

    Fifteen-year-old Anashe dropped out of school in June of 2018—a week before this photograph was taken—because her family was unable to pay her fees. “My favorite subject was Science and I had hoped to become a doctor when I graduated,” Anashe told WAP.

     

    Spiwe

    Seventeen-year-old Spiwe told WAP that she left school after finishing Grade 7 because her family could no longer afford to pay her school fees. Spiwe now lives with her grandmother, who is having trouble supporting her. “I want to go back to school,” she told WAP. “Now I do nothing. I’m feeling so much pain seeing young people my age going to school.”

     

    Rejoice

    Sixteen-year-old Rejoice dropped out of school during Form 2. “My mother and father divorced. My father is now in South Africa and my mother can’t pay the fees on her own.” Rejoice’s favorite subject was Commerce and she had hoped one day to become a nurse.

    She now spends her time at home with her brothers and sisters; her mother buys and sells goods in the market. Rejoice has five siblings and none of them are currently in school.

     

    Anodiwa

    WAP met eighteen-year-old Anodiwa in Harare’s Mbare suburb. She left school when she was sixteen after discovering she was pregnant.“My favorite classes were History and English. I had wanted to be a human rights personal injury lawyer,” she said.  Like so many Zimbabweans, Anodiwacannot find work. She is currently living with her mother and looking for an employment opportunity so that she can save money for her children’s education.

     

    Plaxedes

    Eighteen-year-old Plaxedes left school two years ago after she became pregnant. Plaxedes married earlier this year. For many women around the world, marriage means a permanent end to their education. Plaxedes says that she would like to go back to school, but that her husband will not allow it. “He would worry that I would go with someone else if I went back to school,” Plaxedes told WAP.


    Chihedza

    Twenty-eight-year-old Chihedza lives in Hopley with her husband and three daughters. Although Chihedza’s husband owns a vegetable stall in the market, they are having trouble raising the necessary $30 each month to pay for their two eldest children’s school fees.

    Chihedza says she loved school but had to leave in Form 3 after her father died. “My wish for my children is for them to go to school,” Chihedza told WAP. “My wish for myself is to one day return to school and complete my Ordinary Level.”


    Joy

    Joy married at age fifteen after her father died. She and her husband live in Hopley with their one-year old son. Now eighteen, Joy misses school. She recalls that her favorite subjects were math and science. “I had hoped to be a medical doctor, I wanted to help people” she told WAP. “If I’m given an opportunity to go back to school, I know I would do better than all the others. I know I am smart.”

     

    Fadzai

    Fifteen-year-old Fadzai left school in Form 2 after her father died and her mother left Zimbabwe to work in South Africa. Fadzai now liveswith her grandmother and they support themselves by selling Freeze-its (frozen popsicles) in the market. Fadzai’s favorite subject was science and she had once hoped to become a doctor. “What is most difficult for me is the issue of my education,” she told WAP. “I want to go back to school like the other children, when I see them going too school I feel such pain.”

     

    Elizabeth

    Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth is currently in Form 2, but says her family is having trouble paying her school fees. When she grows up she hopes to become a flight attendant.


    Auyanerudo

    Nineteen-year-old Auyanerudo completed her Ordinary Level exam last year but has not been able to collect the results because she owes the school $450 in overdue fees. Auyanerudo’s favorite subjects were History and Shona [Zimbabwe’s primary language]. She hopes to attend university one day. She now spends her time taking care of her niece while her sister sells secondhand clothes in the market.

     

    Anokosha

    Seventeen-year-old Anokosha left school in 2016 after her father passed away and her mother became unable to pay her school fees. Anokosha had hoped to become a teacher one day. “I loved school,” she told WAP. “I delighted in Maths.” Now she spends her time caring for her grandmother, who is unwell.

     

    Judith


    Fifteen-year-old Judith dropped out of school last April, when she was in Form 3, because her family could not afford her fees. Judith’s favorite subject was Accounts.“Now I am doing nothing, I am just around reading books at home. I’ve been reading exercise books from school,” she told WAP.

     

    Names and identifying details in this story have been changed.

     

  2. Abigail’s Story

    2 Comments

    Abagail in her rented room in Harare.

     

    Abigail is soft-spoken but carries herself with a quiet authority far beyond her eighteen years. When we first met at her secondary school in Harare, Abigail was laughing and joking with her friends in between classes. She seemed carefree; she stood out from her peers only in her thoughtfulness and her pointed contributions to class discussions.

    But beneath her exterior poise, Abigail was concealing intense hardship. “My situation was very bad at home and I thought I would get married to escape it,” she told the Women Advocacy Project (WAP). Her troubles began last year after her parents divorced. Abigail was close to her father; she was upset when he moved to another neighborhood, while she and her mother went to stay with her aunt.

    Abigail was beginning to adjust to the new situation and focusing on her school work when one day, without warning, her mother returned to the rural village where she was born. Her abrupt departure left Abigail alone in Harare. She was only seventeen. “I remained alone for two months,” Abigail told WAP. “When my mother returned to Harare, she said I must go to the village with her. I refused. My school and church were here, and I wanted to stay near my father. My mother had left me alone without telling me, but my father had been coming to school to visit me.”

    When Abigail refused to go to the village, her mother was furious. “She called all our relatives and sat me down in front of them. She told them not to take me in again. I was then left alone on the street.” Abigail did not know exactly where her father lived; she knew only that he was downtown and living with a girlfriend. She had some money for transport and managed to find her way to him.

    “When I arrived, my father wasn’t home and his girlfriend told me to go back where I had come from. It was late at night and again I was alone on the street,” Abigail said through tears. Harare can be dangerous at night for a girl in an unfamiliar area. Eventually, Abigail found her way back to her aunt and uncle’s home. “When I arrived, they chased me away. They said, ‘you can’t eat our food, you can’t use our plates.’ They told me that to stay with them, I must pay rent, even though I was in school and had no money of my own.”

    Abigail’s relatives allowed her to stay for the night but told her that if her father did not come to get her first thing in the morning, they would throw her out of the house. Panicked, she tried to call her father’s phone, but she could not reach him.

    “The next morning, my uncle pulled off my blankets and said, ‘get out of this house and do not come back.’ He took my things and threw them outside on the street,” Abigail said. “I had no money, I had no place to stay, I had no one to turn to. This was the first time I considered getting married. I thought I would find a boy I knew, have him get me pregnant, and then he would have to marry me.”

    Abigail had participated in one of WAP’s anti-child marriage training programs. “I thought about the seminar I had with WAP where I had learned about child marriage and what it does to girls’ futures. No matter how bad the situation was, I knew it wasn’t the right path.”

    Abigail went to a friend from church and asked to stay with her while she looked for a place to live and a way to pay rent. She stopped going to school and started cleaning houses, washing clothes, and selling tomatoes in order to support herself. She found a small room near her church to rent. When her father eventually returned her calls, he was sympathetic, but said that she could not live with him.

    Abigail’s room.

     

    Although Abigail had stopped going to school, she continued to attend church, where she sang in the choir. “My school headmaster sings in the choir with me, he asked why I had stopped going to school without telling anyone. I decided to confide in him and tell him about my situation,” she said. Abigail is a promising student and well-liked by both her teachers and her peers. After hearing her story, the headmaster offered to help her and began personally paying her school fees.

    Because of the headmaster’s kindness, Abigail has returned to school, but she still struggles to make ends meet. She spends every spare moment working to raise money to cover her living expenses, and the strain has affected her ability to keep up with her class work. “Sometimes my father will send me some money, but it’s too little. Sometimes I can’t come up with enough money and I survive on avocados,” she told WAP.

     

    Abigail’s room.

     

    Last June, during Zimbabwe’s surprisingly chilly winter, Abigail showed WAP her rented room. It is windowless and only slightly larger than a closet, without a bathroom or sink. Abagail bought a small gas stove and a few plates and utensils. She stores water and cooking oil in jugs, which she stacks neatly in a corner. She has two blankets, one she folds on the floor and the other that she uses to cover herself for warmth. “I’m living a lying life,” she says.  “I don’t tell people where I live, I don’t want them to know of my situation”

    Last month, Abigail failed to make enough money to pay her rent. “The man I am renting from said it would be okay if I went out with him, but I said no. He is ten years older than me and a womanizer,” Abagail told WAP. “I was desperate and afraid of being thrown out, so I called my mother for the first time in many months. She wouldn’t hear anything of my situation. She only wanted to know news about my father, she asked no questions about me.”

    Sometimes Abigail says she collapses from stress. Still, she has resolved to be independent. “I’m now working hard to build my own life, so I don’t need to depend on my family or anyone,” she says. “I know my rights as a girl. I have the confidence to stand up for myself, I have the confidence to speak out.”

     

    Names and identifying details in this story have been changed.

  3. Girls to the Front: Mentorship to Fight Child Marriage

    2 Comments

    Portia wants to wait to marry because she has seen the hardships faced by friends who married as children.

     

    In June 2018, Girls Not Brides, the international coalition of 1000 organizations working to end child marriage, held their second Global Meeting in Kuala Lumpur. Over the course of a three-day conference, 500 activists (representing 70 countries) presented their work, shared the lessons that they had learned in their endeavors, and discussed strategies to end child marriage.

    “Throughout the Global Meeting, youth activists shared examples of how their work has led to concrete changes in the lives of girls. It was clear that if we want to end child marriage, we have to empower youth and youth-led organizations and ensure they have the agency to make decisions about their present and future,” said Girls Not Brides’ Executive Director Lakshmi Sundaram.

    The Women Advocacy Project (WAP) is a proud member of the Girls Not Brides coalition. Its experience working at the community level supports Sundaram’s conclusion. Since 2015, WAP has been leading anti-child marriage training programs in and around Harare. Consistently, WAP has seen that girls are the most effective educators about the dangers of child marriage. When they are equipped with knowledge and confidence, they can be powerful agents for change in their communities.

    According to UNICEF, 32% of girls in Zimbabwe marry before their eighteenth birthdays. In June and July of 2018, WAP interviewed 136 women and girls in five communities, including fourteen women who married as children and many more at risk of early marriage.When our research team met young women under the age of eighteen, we asked them what they knew about child marriage. Girls who had participated in WAP’s training programs unanimously said that child marriage “causes many challenges” and leaves girls vulnerable to health risks, violence, and poverty. All of these respondents emphasized the importance of waiting to reach adulthood before marrying.

    “I’ll only get married when I have completed university and I have worked. I want to be independent first,” says WAP beneficiary Marion.

     

    One girl we interviewed, Nyasha, became pregnant when she was fifteen years old. Unintended pregnancies push many girls to marry in order to preserve their family’s honor, but Nyasha had attended a WAP anti-child marriage training.“I learned about child marriage and was taught how to help others not to become involved in child marriage,” she said. Today, Nyasha and her child are supported by her father, who works as a carpenter. “I don’t want to get married,” she says. “My desire is to go back to school.”

    Nineteen-year-old Marion, a WAP beneficiary from Chitungwiza,explained the essential role of WAP’s training programs in preventing child marriages: “WAP’s programs are important because of the knowledge you have gained. When I talk to fifteen-year-olds who are pregnant I feel bad because I know they will face challenges.” Following the training, Marion has been talking to her friends about the dangers associated with early marriage. “We need to be educated as girls. We need to know that early child marriage causes poverty because of a lack of education.” Marion is resolute about her own plans for the future: “I’ll only get married when I have completed university and I have worked. I want to be independent first,” she said.

    The vast majority of girls WAP interviewed who had not participated in an anti-child marriage training reported that they knew “nothing” about child marriage. These respondents were unaware that child marriage is illegal under Zimbabwean law and many believed that marriage was a path to remove oneself from poverty, pay school fees, or escape abuse and neglect at home.

    There was, however, a significant exception within this group. Girls who had not participated in an anti-child marriage training but who had a close friend or family member who married as a child were overwhelmingly wary of child marriage.

    For example, Portia, a young woman we interviewed, told us that she was seventeen years old when her father passed away and she had to drop out of school because her family could no longer afford to pay the fees. The death of a parent, coupled with the financial instability that frequently results from it, often pushes girls into marriage, but Portia did not consider this option. “I’m not yet ready for marriage,” she told WAP. Her opinion was shaped by observing the experiences of several of her friends who married young. “They got married early because of harassment and bad treatment from their families. But there are many challenges for women who marry and give birth at a tender age. Their muscles are not ready.”

    Fifteen-year-old Aneni left school when she was eleven. Like Portia, she refused to consider marriage because she had watched the experience of someone close to her.“My older sister got married at fifteen, she’s been married for five years now. Sometimes her husband will leave the house for long periods without telling her. That’s why I dislike the idea of getting married at a tender age,” Aneni told WAP.

    Fifteen-year-old Aneni dislikes “the idea of getting married at a tender age” because she witnessed the experiences of her sister.

     

    “I want to marry at twenty-three,” fifteen-year-old Wonai from Epworth told us. “I had a friend who married at fifteen. Now she is sixteen and with a baby. Her life is very difficult. I learned from my friend.”

    WAP recognizes that this data shows that training and community-integrated mentorship can be immensely effective in changing attitudes toward child marriage. The vast majority of WAP’s interviewees who married as children or teenagers reported that they regretted their decisions and hoped that their children would have the knowledge to make different choices.

    Venethy Chisanduro, a secondary school teacher, told WAP that she had seen many girls marry because they lacked opportunities to contribute to society and build lives for themselves in other ways, “Every term, at least one of my students would get married,” she said. “Many of these girls don’t have much exposure to nice things, to new experiences. A man comes along, and he is exciting and new.” A government official in Manicaland Province echoed this sentiment, saying that in his District many girls could not afford school and were often left unoccupied because of a lack of employment opportunities. “From what I have seen, idleness is a big cause of child marriages,” he told WAP.

    In the coming months, WAP will recruit and train five talented young women to work as Ambassadors Against Child Marriage.  Ambassadors will use WAP’s anti-child marriage training curriculum to educate their peers about the long-term harms that are associated with child marriage. This program will provide girls with a strong community and ensure that they do not enter into marriage because of a lack of knowledge or exposure to other options.

    “They know best what the other girls are thinking,” Chisanduro said of her students. “They are the best teachers.”

    Names and identifying details in this story have been changed.

    To read more, or to donate to the Ambassadors Against Child Marriage program: https://www.globalgiving.org/microprojects/help-5-girls-lead-the-fight-against-child-marriage/

    Girls create skits about child marriage at a day-long training in Harare.

  4. Child Marriage and Religion in Zimbabwe

    3 Comments

    Evelyn photographed in Harare, June 2018.

     

    When Evelyn was thirteen years old, her brother became seriously ill and she went to her village’s Apostolic church to seek help from one of its spiritual healers. The African Apostolic Church mixes evangelical Christian beliefs with traditional culture and has over a million followers in Zimbabwe. Colloquially, it is called the “White Garment Church” because its devotees wear spotless white robes and worship outdoors under white banners. Drive through Harare on Friday, the Apostolic day of worship, and you’ll see groups of white-robed worshipers gathered in open-air churches in fields or under Zimbabwe’s namesake rock formations.

    Evelyn prayed fervently at the White Garment Church for her brother’s recovery. After the service, the Apostolic healer asked Evelyn to remain behind and speak with him. She agreed, hoping that he would offer a special prayer for her brother. Once the other worshipers had left and they were alone, the priest raped her.

    When Evelyn told her parents about the assault, they confronted the healer, even though he was the son of the local chief and had considerable influence in their village. Evelyn’s attacker offered to marry her, saying that he would pay Evelyn’s father Lobola, or bride price, and compensate him with cattle.

    An Apostolic priest and his congregation in Harare.

     

    Evelyn wanted nothing to do with her attacker—he was in his fifties and she was only thirteen—but her parents forced her to marry him because she was no longer a virgin and they believed that her lack of virginity brought shame to the family.

    Evelyn’s marriage was not a happy one. Her husband had four other wives, all of whom were young women or girls, and she soon discovered that he was both physically and sexually abusive. Evelyn did not want to have children in this environment and began taking family planning tablets, but her husband discovered them and beat her. Members of the African Apostolic Church often seek to elevate their standing within the congregation by having many children whom they can bring into the church as new followers.

    When Evelyn discovered she was pregnant, she attempted to escape, but her husband found her and dragged her home. “Every five months, I would try to run away,” she told the Woman Advocacy Project. “But he would look for me everywhere and find me. I once tried to take my son and run, I went to my brother’s house, but I saw him coming in the distance and I fled. I went to my aunties’ place, but he didn’t have any trouble locating me there.” After one of her attempts to escape, Evelyn’s husband took all of her clothes and hid them in order to prevent her from leaving.

    After several years and six unsuccessful escape attempts, Evelyn managed to flee to Harare. Although she was finally free of her husband’s violence, she had to leave her son behind—a choice that she still finds tremendously painful. Evelyn’s husband is now the chief of their village and he has considerable influence over the local courts, which have awarded him sole custody of the child. In secret, Evelyn used to visit her son at school; when her husband learned of the visits, the school banned her from the premises. Her husband has threatened to notify the police if Evelyn tries to contact her son again. It has been more than three years since she last saw the child.

    An Apostolic place of worship in the Waterfalls neighborhood of Harare.

     

    My last few posts have discussed how poverty, limited access to education, inadequate knowledge of sexual and reproductive health, and harmful social norms fuel child marriage in Zimbabwe. In this post I’ll take a look at another cause of early marriage: the harmful practices that are common in African Apostolic sects.

    Child marriage, forced marriage, and other human rights violations, including virginity testing, are widely practiced among Zimbabwe’s Apostolic groups, and particularly in rural areas. Many of these congregations discourage girls’ education and forbid married girls to attend school. According to a UNFPA report, rates of child marriage are significantly higher among Apostolics: 23% of Apostolicadolescents are married, compared to 9% of adolescents who belong to traditional religious communities.

    Apostolic Church doctrine places a high value on virginity. Girls as young as twelve are often pushed into marriages—usually too far older men—in order to ensure that they do not become sexually active out of wedlock. As one woman member of an Apostolic church in Zimbabwe reported to Human Rights Watch, “As soon as a girl reaches puberty, any man in the church can claim her for his wife.”

    These marriages are sometimes forced. “Some men in these [Apostolic] churches claim to have dreamt being married to you, they say, ‘you were given to me in spirit’ and you are forced to go to him,” a girl in rural Zimbabwe told UNFPA.

    Several young women told WAP that young girls are often lined up and chosen for marriage by White Garment Church elders. This selection usually follows “virginity testing,” or the insertion of fingers into the vagina in order to confirm that the hymen is intact. (The World Health Organization calls this practice a human rights violation that has no scientific grounding.)  “If found to be virgins they get marks on their foreheads. Older men in the church will then choose these ‘fresh girls’ to become their wives, often joining polygamous unions. If a man marries a woman who is not a virgin, she is required to find a virgin girl for her husband to marry as compensation,” said Archbishop Johannes Ndanga, president of the Apostolic Churches Council of Zimbabwe.

    Zivanai and her children in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe.

     

    Polygamy is common in Apostolic sects. Zivanai, a 28-year-old member of the Apostolic faith, told WAP that when she was eighteen years old, she married a man who had two other wives. “His first wife has six children, his second wife has four,”Zivanai said. “We all stay with him and each night he goes in a circle, from one woman to the next.”Over the past ten years, Zivanai has given birth to four children and is currently pregnant. Her husband does not provide any financial support and none of her children are attending school.

    The Apostolic sect rewards men who bring many children into the church as followers. This rewards system incentivizes husbands to have more wives and children than they can support. As a result, these unions often lead to poverty and leave women and children vulnerable to domestic abuse. “My father had six wives and there were twenty-six children,” Rudo, a young woman living in Chitungwiza, told WAP. “My father was praying with the White Garment Church. That is the culture. When you are growing in the church, you have many wives to bring in more followers.”

    Rudo’s father was often violent. After several years of abuse, Rudo’s mother and two of the other wives ran away.“After my mother left, there was no one to take care of me, no one cared for me,” she said. Her brother would hit her and Rudo felt alone and helpless. “I sought out a boyfriend because I faced a difficult situation at home,” she told WAP. When she was seventeen, she was seen out with a boyfriend. Worried that she was no longer a virgin, Rudo’s family forced her to marry the boy. Today Rudo and her husband are still together and have five children.“I’m not happy in my marriage. I feel like I’m living my mother’s life,” she says.

    In recent years, several Apostolic church leaders have pledged to end child marriage in their congregations, but these efforts have yet to reach many communities throughout Zimbabwe. WAP calls on all Apostolic sects to respect women and girls’ rights by ending child and forced marriages, committing to women and girls’ equality, and discontinuing the degrading and unscientific practice of virginity testing.

    Names and identifying details in this story have been changed.

     

    An Apostolic congregation in Harare.

  5. What’s the Big Deal About Child Marriage?

    6 Comments

     

     

    Nyarayi lives in Mbare, a suburb of Harare. She married at age 15 and had two children by the time she was 18. Nyarayi says she hopes her daughter will wait to marry until after she finishes school.                  Photo: Alex Kotowski

     

    For the past four years, I’ve been working on projects to end child marriage both internationally and in my home country, the United States. This summer, I’m investigating the issue of child marriage in Zimbabwe and probing the distinct economic and social factors that contribute to its continued occurrence throughout the country, even though it was outlawed in 2016. When I talk to people both at home and here in Harare about child marriage, many respond with interest about the subject and positivity about the value of efforts to end the practice. But not all of my conversation partners feel this way.

    While almost everyone agrees that 12- and 13-year-olds are too young to marry, some wonder: what’s the big deal for a teenager aged 16 or 17? More than one individual can cite a beloved grandmother who wed at 16 and lived happily ever after. After all, wasn’t Juliet 13 years old when she married Romeo? And if a girl becomes pregnant, isn’t it in her best interest to get married? Taking a broader perspective, some ask: Why does a “soft issue” like child marriage get so much attention? Zimbabwe is suffering from record unemployment and an economic crisis. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the big problems of poverty and hunger?

    The simple answer is that working to end child marriage also means working to end poverty and hunger. The practice of early marriage blocks the realization of eight of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and, as a result, one of the goals’ targets includes the elimination of child marriage by the year 2030.

     

    Eighteen-year-old Yeukai sports a WAP “Give Us Books Not Husbands” campaign shirt. Yeukai says she has no interest in marriage until she finishes her studies. Photo: Alex Kotowski

     

    The term “child marriage” refers to any union where one or both partners are under the age of 18. Globally, 12 million girls marry each year. To put that number in perspective, 12 million people is roughly the population of Belgium. Child marriage impacts the entire course of a girl’s life. The long-term negative outcomes of child marriage on a girl’s health, education, and safety are well documented.

    Health: Early marriage can cause serious harm both to married girls and to their children. The vast majority of child marriages are unions between girls and adult men; this dynamic creates a power imbalance in which girls have limited ability to negotiate safe sex and make decisions about pregnancy and healthy birth spacing.The younger a girl is, the less likely it is that she both understands and has access to reproductive health care.

    Lack of access to reproductive health services poses a serious threat to a girl’s health. In developing countries, complications from pregnancy and birth are the leading cause of death among girls aged 15–19.  Girls who marry before age 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their twenties are. The younger a girl is when she gives birth, the more likely it is that her pelvis and birth canal are not fully developed, which places her at high risk for maternal mortality. Additionally, children born to teenage mothers are significantly more likely to die during the first year of life than children born to adult women.

     

    Girls march with the Woman Advocacy Project (WAP) to call for an end to child marriage as part of the “Give Us Books Not Husbands” campaign.   Photo: Bernard Chihota

     

    Education: Girls almost always leave school once they marry, which limits their lifelong earning potential and increases their dependence on husbands and families. With limited education, girls are less likely to enter the workforce, and when they do, it is usually in low-paying professions. Marrying early leaves a woman vulnerable to poverty and hunger if her husband dies or if her marriage dissolves. Girls from poor families are significantly more likely to marry than girls from rich families and these early marriages reinforce cycles of intergenerational poverty.

    Safety: The issue of education is closely tied to the issue of safety. According to Human Rights Watch, married girls between age 15 and 19 with minimal education are at heightened risk of domestic violence and spousal abuse when compared to adult women with higher levels of education. A woman with children who left school at 15 has a limited ability to support herself and her children; she seldom has access to resources that would help her escape an abusive partnership.

    Finally, the issue of child marriage not only impacts girls lives but also affects the global economy. According to a report from the World Bank and the International Center for Research on Women, child marriage will cost the global economy trillions of dollars by the year 2030. Ending child marriage, on the other hand, would increase average household welfare and stem rates of population growth.

    In the coming weeks, I’ll be reporting on the issue of child marriage in Zimbabwe, the major factors that contribute to the practice, and the innovative solutions that groups like the Woman Advocacy Project (WAP) are using to tackle the problem.

     

  6. Child Marriage from New York to Harare

    8 Comments

    Child marriage activists and Assembly woman Amy Paulin hold a press conference to talk about proposed legislation to end child marriage in New York State. Photo: Taylor Ahearn.

     

    In a few days, I’ll be flying to Harare, Zimbabwe to begin my Peace Fellowship working with the Woman Advocacy Project (WAP) to support their efforts to combat child marriage.

    As I prepare for my fellowship, I’m aware of the fact that Zimbabwe—which recognizes 18 as the legal minimum age for marriage—has stronger child marriage laws than my home country, the United States, does. Shockingly, 49 US states currently permit legal child marriages.

    While the global issue of child marriage is not commonly associated with the US, it is a persistent and under-reported problem across the country. According to marriage license data compiled by the advocacy group Unchained at Last, more than 167,000 children in the US aged 17 and younger married between 2000 and 2010. The vast majority of them were girls marrying adult men. While states set 18 as the minimum age for marriage, all but Delaware currently allow exceptions to this minimum—for example, if the girl is pregnant, or if the marriage is sanctioned by her parents.

    In the past four years, I have been involved in efforts to support child marriage eradication projects in Tanzania, Nepal, Bangladesh, and the US. Whether a girl is married in Dhaka or Downtown Brooklyn, early marriage threatens her mental and physical health, heightens the risk that violence will be used against her, and often permanently ends her education.

    Until last year, children age 14 and 15 were legally permitted to marry in New York State with permission from a judge and their parents. Photo: Alex Kotowski.

     

    In the US, girls who marry before the age of 19 are twice as likely to drop out of high school, which restricts their future job prospects and increases their dependence on their husbands and families. A girl without a high school diploma has limited options if she is trapped in an abusive marriage, since it is often extremely difficult for her to seek the legal assistance or social services that would be necessary for her to escape. Children under 18 have difficulties securing legal representation because contracts with minors are voidable. Groups like Unchained at Last have experienced difficulty trying to help minors escape abusive partnerships because they could be accused of kidnapping.

    The good news is that recent years have seen growing momentum against the problem of child marriage, in both Zimbabwe and the United States. In 2016, Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court set 18 as the minimum marriage age for girls and boys—crucially allowing no exceptions—which was the result of a lawsuit that had been brought against the government by two former child brides, Loveness Mudzura and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi. Last month, Delaware became the first state in the US to set 18 as its minimum marriage age—again, allowing no exceptions. While these decisions represent important steps in the right direction, much remains to be done.

    This summer I’ll be working with the Advocacy Project to help prevent child marriages in Zimbabwe, where the most recent available data (from 2017) shows that 32% of girls are married before they reach the age of 18, and 4% before age 15. And from Zimbabwe, I’ll be supporting the US activists who are working to push other US states to follow Delaware’s example.