The ManicaPost
Dr Mazvita Machinga
LOCAL and social media platforms have been busy for the past weeks bemoaning the story of a 14-year-old girl who died at an apostolic sect meeting in Marange on July 15.
The story of this young girl is so sad and devastating, and any such marriages need not to happen at all.
Remember, child marriage is any marriage or informal union where at least one of the parties is under 18 years old.
Young girls like her should not go through such horrible experiences. This incident reinforces the fact that child marriages are inhumane,intolerable, and associated with harmful consequences.
Studies have revealed that, apart from physiological challenges, children who are impregnated or taken as wives often find themselves struggling to cope with anxiety, suicide ideation, post-traumatic stress, non-epileptic psychogenic seizures, and depression.
Abuse marital relationship, victimisation, financial and sexual exploitation, sexually transmitted disease, unexpected pregnancies, and significant problems with parenting face these young girls. They also find little sympathy or support in their marital home and are often victims of abuse.
There is a growing body of international and national literature that shows that these children’s human rights are seriously violated and all those implicated need to be taken to book.
Focusing on girls in this paper does not mean boys do not face challenges, but this is in response what we have been reading these weeks.
Mental health impact of marrying children and impregnating children
As mentioned above, apart from physical harm, such as sexually transmitted infection, cervical cancer, obstetric fistulas, and maternal mortality, children married at an early age are at high risk of poor psychological and mental well-being.
This is a serious human rights violation, that should never be condoned in any community.
The question is that, as this is a known act of violence by communities, why is this allowed to happen in our society?
There is no easy answer to this, but the underlining factor is that it is our cooperate responsibility, both males and females to stop such kinds of practices.
An important issue is that the impact of early marriage on the reproductive health of women has been well documented, but the effect on mental health often gets overlooked and it is time to take this seriously.
Studies that were done in Africa, showed that various sub-domains and aspects of psychological well-being namely, depression, trauma, anxiety, positive well-being, vitality, and general health were negatively associated with very early marriage.
In addition, child brides are reported suffering emotional distress and depression induced by the burden of handling marital responsibilities at an early age.
So, indeed we look forward to eradication of child marriages
What needs to be done
a) Stopping any marriage where at least one of the parties is under 18 from happening by reporting to authorities.
b) Parents need to be compassionate and caring enough not to give away or marry off their young teenage girls.
c) Local leaders such as chiefs, headman, councillors, religious leaders, and others must strengthen systems to protect the rights of teenage girls.
d) Stakeholders such as legal organisations, law enforcement and others must act when such cases are reported to them.
e) Let us help young girls to get away from the perpetrators to safe places as fast as we can. Information can be found from local police stations and from the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development.
f) Let us help all our girls to be able to know and call on various toll-free numbers available such as Psychotherapy Care and Counselling Services, Mutare 08080482, Zimbabwe Council of Churches, 08080466 Child-line Helpline 116 and many others.
g) Families, communities need to be given specific guidance in so far as reporting such cases is concerned within our communities.
h) All the girls who have undergone these experiences need to be rescued from the households where they are married off and offered optional shelter, care, and trauma therapy from trained psychotherapists.
i) Child marriage is rooted in gender inequality and in the low value accorded to girls and is exacerbated by poverty, insecurity, and conflict.
It denies girls their rights and undermines numerous development priorities, so this is an area which needs conversation and dialogue among members of the society (SADC Model of Eradicating
Child Marriages).
Child marriage robs girls of their childhood, there are children and lets us not make them child mothers of child wives.
We must come together and speak out.
