Girl rescues herself from pre-arranged early marriage

Her uncle would beat her up and with the help of her mother, hide the little girl’s clothes and put her blanket in cold water. Her crime: she refused to get into a pre-arranged marriage.

The mother and uncle found a man and forced their 16-year-old girl Shamida John to marry him. The girl protested against the marriage. She said she wanted to complete her education.

The man, a Mr Manyengo of Group Village Head (GVH) Masi in Traditional Authority Chowe, Mangochi, started visiting the house to sleep with Shamida. She hated this and protested against it.

She received ill-treatment from both her mother and uncle for refusing to marry the man.

“The man started coming to our home and he met my mother and uncle. I refused to marry him.  But they forced me to marry him. They would beat me up for refusing to sleep with him,” said Shamida, in a telephone interview from Mangochi on Wednesday.

A sympathiser in the village who witnessed Shamida’s treatment, Charles Mtupetupe, took her to the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) for assistance.

At the intervention of the CCJP, the man then left to look for employment in South Africa. But that was not the end of her troubles.

All this was happening last year. The CCJP of Mangochi Diocese liaised with the district social welfare office and the police victim support unit in the district which facilitated Shamida’s rescue. She was transported to Mzuzu where her father lives.

“While in Mzuzu, I went back to school. I was in Form One. But I was recalled to go to Mangochi because my mother fell sick. I went back to the same evil environment and lived in fear of going through the same ordeal,” said Shamida.

As she nursed her mother, other men started pestering her. They also wanted her as a wife. She refused to be drawn into an early marriage. Then her mother died last month.

Trouble started again. She was living with her old grandmother and her uncle started looking for another man for her. She knew the plot and rushed again to CCJP.

She revealed this during an interface meeting last week which was organised by the Mangochi CCJP through its governance project funded by Misereor of Germany.

Shamida spoke against her late mother’s efforts to get her into an early marriage. She also condemned her uncle’s plot to marry her off. But she sees no future in education because there is no one to help her as the grandmother is too old to do anything.

“I have fought against the pre-arranged marriage, but my biggest problem is to get resources for education. The grandmother is too old. I am now the breadwinner, but I have no means of earning a living. I cannot go back to school. I have no help,” she said, adding that she could not depend on her father either. Her father is said to be doing a small business that did not even provide enough for himself.

“I need assistance to go back to school. I do not want to live in this area again. Anything can happen to me because my uncle is not happy to see me without a man,” she said.

Shamida is not feeling comfortable living in the area again. Even CCJP and other organisations such as the district social welfare and GVH Mkatha are not happy that she is back to the same poor environment. They all fear that the situation she is in may force her to get into an early marriage.

Councillor for GVH Mkatha, Mavantha Mbwana said Shamida was in an awkward situation and needed help to get her out of the environment she was in and get back to school.

“Her mother and uncle forced her to get married. She refused. It is not safe for her to live in this community. Maybe if she got help to go back to her father in Mzuzu would be fine. We cannot help her. We are too poor,” said Mbwana.

Mangochi Diocese CCJP coordinator Bruno Banda hailed Shamida for her courage to say no to a pre-arranged marriage.

“I wish all girls had such courage to face their parents and say no to early marriages. We condemn the malpractice as it threatens the achievement of the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS), one whose pillars is access to education. Further, it impedes on the right to education of the girl child, but also risks her health since her body is not yet mature for marriage,” said Banda.

He added: “Children are entitled to be protected from exploitation or any treatment or work that is likely to be hazardous or interfere with their education or harmful to their health or their physical, mental or spiritual or social development. Parents should be the last people to expose children into such exploitation.”

Issues of early marriages have become common in many communities and in others, chiefs have come up with penalties to parents and guardians who promote the malpractice.

Senior Chief Chitera of Chiradzulu is one of the chiefs that came up with by-laws to punish parents and guardians who force children into early marriage. The by-laws were adopted by the Chiradzulu District Council last year.

“Penalties include paying goats and chickens among others. The idea is to stop early marriages. We want girls to go to school,” said Chitera.