Child marriages epidemic hits Manicaland

03 Sep, 2021 - 00:09 0 Views
Child marriages epidemic hits Manicaland Child marriage has a devastating impact on the lives of adolescent girls

The ManicaPost

Wendy Nyakurerwa-Matinde
Editor’s Musings

IN a world where child marriages are rife, with 37 000 girls under the age of 18 getting married each day (according to the United Nations), young girls are increasingly facing the risk of the scourge now more than ever before.

In the developing world, Zimbabwe included, one in three girls are married before 18, while one in nine are married before the age of 15.

Among those victims is Anna Machaya, the 14-year-old girl who recently breathed her last during child birth at a Johane Marange shrine in Marange, right here in Manicaland.

At the age of 13, Anna had been forced out of school while doing her Form One in Mhondoro in order to get married to Hatirarame alias Evans Momberume.

Anna left behind a baby boy who is reportedly in the custody of the Machayas in Kwekwe and following her death, it was also revealed that the Machayas were planning to offer their nine-year-old daughter to their in-laws as Anna’s replacement (chigadzamapfihwa).

The girl’s parents — Edmore Machaya and Shy Mabika — are now being charged with obstructing the course of justice after they allegedly availed 22-year-old Memory Machaya’s identity document in a bid to make law enforcement agents believe that their daughter was a major when she got married.

While the chronology of events might differ depending on the narrator, what is undisputable is that Anna was denied medical attention during her hour of greatest need.

 

Medical experts say girls under 15 are five times more likely to die during child birth as they face higher risk of pregnancy-related complications than women in their 20s.

Anna reportedly died around 9am on July 15 and was secretly buried two hours later.

However, to add salt to injury, her body remains unaccounted for almost two months after her painful death as her family insists that she was buried at the Mafararikwa Shrine, while the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church claims this is not true.

As investigations into Anna’s death gathered steam, with Momberume initially facing charges of rape and being intimate with a minor before they were upgraded to include murder, more skeletons have been tumbling from the province’s closet.

It has emerged that 13-year-old Violet Mushati’s whereabouts remain unknown following her disappearance from the Marange shrine around the time of Anna’s death.

Fears abound that Violet might also be another victim of child marriage.

Sadly, there is one common factor between the Anna and Violet cases, as well as many others- it seems like there is always great hesitancy on the part of their immediate family members to report the child marriage cases to the police.

A landmark 2016 Constitutional Court ruling declared child marriages unconstitutional and set 18 years as the minimum age to consent to marriage but this doesn’t seem to deter would-be offenders as they continue to abuse young girls in the name of marriage, with the victims’ parents or guardians facilitating these ‘marriages’.

While child marriages occur in every region across the world and is practiced across cultures and religions, it turns out Manicaland — home to many apostolic churches — is one of the epicentres of the plague which is fuelled by harmful traditional and religious practices.

Between March 2020 and January 2021 alone, 907 of the province’s girls below 18 fell pregnant and were married off.

Chipinge was the hardest hit district, while Mutare and Buhera came second and third respectively.

This comes as the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises and other stakeholders, among them the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ), has called for thorough investigations into cases of child marriages.

“Abuse comes in various forms and this is one form that is mainly affecting the girl child. Child marriages should be called rape because that’s exactly what it is. A child simply cannot consent to marriage,” said Mrs Selina Marewangepo, WCoZ’s Mutare Chapter chairperson.

“Anna’s death created outrage. We are all angry because it is not a single child, thousands of them are being sexually abused in this country.

“Therefore all those who play a part in perpetuating this crime should be brought to book. That includes the parents who marry off their children and the child rapists,” said Mrs Marewangepo.

Indeed, as the Women Affairs Minister Sithembiso Nyoni is on record saying, religion and culture should not be used to sanitise a violation of other people’s rights as child marriage is nothing other than child sexual abuse.

Till next week, let’s chew the cud.

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