Two years in marriage for 12 year-old

She is just 14 years old but has seen and experienced both sides of the life—being a girl and a married woman.

For two years—between 2013 and 2014—the girl we will call Princess because of her age—was in marriage. But she regrets every moment she spent in that marriage.

“This is the most unfortunate time of my life,” she begins her story. “It exposed me to abuse. It was a tough life I do not want to experience again.”

But Princess argues that the decision to marry was not wrong, but the timing and the type of husband she met were wrong.

She insists that considering her situation then, most girls of her age could have thought the same. In addition, the teenager says she fell to the husband’s sweet talk and promises that signalled her graduation from poverty.

She recalls meeting the man in 2013 and says it was a few months after her mother had divorced and left home for greener pasture in Blantyre city. This, she says, turned her into head of a family of four siblings.

“In married life, which was supposed to be my rescue, life was hard. We could hardly afford two meals a day. The husband made several promises that assured me some relief, but it was all a miscalculation,” she explains.

Life in marriage

Princess was in school and in Standard Six the time she met the man who later became her spouse. However, due to poverty at her home, she says her school attendance was intermittent. The man was then 23 years old and already married to another woman.

She admits that she knew was to become a second wife, but felt that with time she would finally wholly own the man. Not surprising, though, there was no formal marriage arrangement, traditional or otherwise.

At 12, Princess was too young for any kind of man. She had not even begun her menstruation. The soft-spoken girl said she even struggled to enjoy sexual intercourse.

“I endured all the pain until I got used because of love and hope for more support for my family’s survival,” she explains.

Princess explains that despite efforts to tell her man to slow down and allow her body to mature first, he went on to make her pregnant. Now, she is a mother of a year-old daughter.

She is proud of her child, but not the painful labour she experienced. Although at only 12, the school drop-out delivered normally. But she said it took her months to recover from the delivery.

Princess is healthy today, but she admits that the pregnancy put her life on a knife-edge.

New York Times quotes Anthony Lake, executive director of Unicef as saying: “Child marriage is not only wrong, it is dangerous. It exposes a young girl to profound health risks from early pregnancy and difficult childbirth and it exposes her baby to complications of premature birth. Her life too is between life and death.”

Harassment

The poor girl laments that she was married to a beast who used to beat her at will when she was pregnant. She adds that most times the man would not give her anything as he spent most of the time at his first wife’s home.

“I tried to report to elders, but they always told me not to leave the man, saying ‘marriage is about tolerance and endurance’.”

After several abuses, she became tired and reported the matter to local leaders in the area, trusting that was a step towards her wish, but the authorities did not entertain her claims—they sent her back.

Her neighbour, Loveness Puliwa, after being sensitised by a Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) of Malawi, an organisation fighting for girls’ rights, intervened.

“The husband was harsh and violent. I could not live to watch her being abused almost every day. With the little knowledge I had gained from YWCA, I told her that was not a marriage to live in. But when we went to the chiefs, she could not be assisted because the village head said it is not their role to end marriages,” explains Puliwa, aged 23 and now a YWCA’s peer educator.

Nonetheless, this was not the end of the journey. Puliwa and others shared Princess’ story with YWCA executive. The association intervened and rescued her from the marriage and will return to her nearby Nansato Primary School to repeat Standard Six.

YWCA executive director Nettie Dzabala says they are working on sending Princess back to school this coming academic year. She says they took Princess to the African Union (AU) Summit in South Africa where she told her story. Dzabala adds that they are also empowering Princess to be independent.

Child marriage situation

Princess’s story sounds exceptional, but she is not the only one. Scores of young girls are being pushed into undesired marriages every day. Statistics show that nearly 30 percent of Malawian girls aged 15 to 19 are being married and a third of adolescent women will have been pregnant or given birth by the time they reach 20.

A baseline survey conducted in Mulanje by YWCA shows that 45.6 percent of the 377 sampled population aged 15-24 had their first sexual intercourse while aged between 14 and 17. It adds that 60 percent of girls drop out of school because of pregnancy. And Unicef reports that Malawi is among 10 countries with highest rates of child marriages. Malawi is on position 10 with 50 percent while Niger is first at 75 percent. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says by 2020, more than 140 million girls will become child brides.

Causes of early marriages

YWCA survey finds that many girls in Mulanje, Zomba and Chikwawa end up in early marriages because of unplanned pregnancies while other factors are poverty, orphanhood, irresponsible parents and guardians, ignorance, inability to be in school, peer pressure, weak laws dealing with those that impregnate young girls and messages that are preached at initiation ceremonies.

But several reports highlight poverty as the main factor. Princess insists that minus poverty, she could have not gone into marriage.

“Although I am out of the abusive marriage, life is hard. To feed the family, I need to do piece work. I am young to work in estates. I do piece work on people’s farms but they are scarce. I thank YWCA for its continued support,” says Princess.

Any way out?

Lilongwe based gender activist, Maureen Mankhwala argues that there is no political will in fighting child marriages. She also hits at the circle in the promotion of girl-child rights, but calls for legal measures that deal with parents that influence or watch their young girls going into early marriages.

“Men who marry young girls should be punished,” suggests Mankhwala.

YWCA board president and overseer of the association’s programmes Mtisunge Kachingwe says the key to winning the battle against this vice is empowering more women and investing in quality education that produces economically independent girls. n