To contain HIV and Aids in marriage, educate girls

‘Girl, 14, forced into marriage by parents’ reads a front page of Nation on Sunday early this year. The reason, according to the father, is quite baffling.
He said “he noticed the girl had grown and he could no longer continue fending for her”. He added “we surrendered her to a rich man so that he takes care of her and us”.
Why, child rights activists asked, could a father be such ‘wicked’ to his daughter?
Yet such stories are nothing unusual in Malawi. They cut across regions, districts and tribes, and, according to most parents and guardians who ‘sell off’ their daughters, poverty is the driving force.
The wisdom is that in ‘selling off their daughters’, the family would get something that would, at least, ease their poverty in two ways. One, the girl would be looked after, meaning, her family’s burden has been eased. And two, the girl’s husband, it is expected, would be helping the family financially.
The challenge with this set up—says Steve Iphani, head of programmes at the Coalition of Women Against HIV and Aids (Cowla)—is that instead of reducing poverty, it fuels it.
“The girls enter marriage from a very weak social position. They do not have any qualification, something that makes them to completely depend on their husbands. This makes them vulnerable to violence from their spouses,” he says.
He adds that this is the reason such wives barely open up to their husbands on sexuality.
“They live without checking their husbands’ infidelity. They succumb to all the cultural expectations that fuel the spread of HIV and Aids,” he says.
The tragedy of Iphani’s wisdom on early marriages and HIV and Aids spread lies in the fact that early marriage continue to be one of the serious challenges in the country.
Nearly half of the girls in the country, according to the 2010 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), are married by the time they are 15.  Fewer than 1 in 5 girls make it to secondary school.
When such girls, married at a tender age gets pregnant, shows the DHS, their leading cause of death is not accident or violence or disease; it is complications from pregnancy. Girls under 15 are up to five times  likely to die while having children than are women in their 20s, and their babies are more likely to die as well.
This, unarguably, shows how early marriages are, to a greater component, a strong factor fuelling poverty than ending it.
Conversely, research shows that when a girl’s marriage is delayed by education, chances of economic opportunities are enormous. Girls who stay in school for seven or more years typically marry four years later and have two fewer children than girls who drop out. Fewer dependents per worker allows for greater economic growth.
For instance, in 2011, the UNFPA shows that an extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school adds 15 to 25 percent.
The World Food Programme (WFP) in 2010 found that when girls and women earn  an income, they reinvest 90 percent of it in their families. They buy books, medicine and bed nets.
“Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world,” Larry Summers wrote when he was chief economist at the World Bank.
This why part of Cowla’s Stepping Stones projects is investing heavily in fighting early marriages in the country.
Michesi Village in Traditional Authority Kalembo in Balaka is one area where early marriages are common.
“Here the problem is that a girl child complains in silence as parents are adamant to accept their views,” says Amos Stewart, a local from the village.
Such views, according to Iphani, are all over.
“This is why we launched the Stepping Stones project to help change the mindset of the people regarding girls,” he says.
Today, Stewart, who is one of the hundreds that have benefited from Stepping Stones training, says the training has helped most parents in his area understand gender based violence including forcing girls into early marriages for economic gains.
“We are thankful to Cowla as we now know that forcing girls who are under the age of 15 into marriage is part of promoting gender-based violence,” says Stewart.
He also observed that a lot of young girls were dying upon delivering because they bodies were not mature enough to contain the pressure that comes with child bearing.
Concurring with Stewart, Balaka district COWLHA Coordinator Elizabeth Njeula says most parents have changed their old ways especially of forcing their daughters into early marriage.
“Reports we are getting from primary and secondary schools in the areas we are working indicate that drop-out rate among girls has reduced because most parents have learnt the importance of kipping the girl child in school rather than forcing her into an early marriage for economic gains,” says Njeula.
Currently according to Njeula, there is high demand for the training to be extended to other parts of the district as it is only in T/A Kalembo and Nsamala where it is being done.
The wisdom is that with delayed marriage due to education, girls will enter marriage well matured—something that would increase their bargain in marriage.
This, says Iphani, would not just boost the economies of the girl and her family.
“It would, most importantly, help women to open up to their husbands, something that is key in containing HIV and Aids spread,” he says.n