Early marriage: A big threat to Zimbabwe’s girl-child

Lazarus Sauti

Agnes Hakata (not her real name) is a 15 year old girl from Hwedza. While her peers get ready to go to school each morning, she has to stay behind to prepare breakfast for her ageing husband.

Sadly, like most teenage marriages, her marriage is not legally registered but is customarily recognised. As a result, Agnes is expected to live as a housewife.

The teenager’s case is not unique in most – if not all areas – in Zimbabwe. Most teenage girls in this country are affected with this cancer and unfortunately, most of these marriages are arranged. Those who are supposed to take care of these teenagers are in actual fact exposing them to vultures that want to prey on them.

Without doubt, lack of access to reproductive health information supported with services is also leading teenagers into early sex. Sex education has not been given required attention in schools while parents fear to talk to their children about sex and reproductive health.

The United Nations Population Fund reports: “Limited availability of youth-friendly sexual reproductive health services and related information contributes to many young people engaging in sexual behaviours that put them at high risk of HIV infection.

“Young women are particularly vulnerable because they are less likely to be informed about how to prevent HIV infection due to social norms and values that make it taboo for sexual matters to be discussed openly.”

To effectively curb this cancer of early marriages, government through the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Women Affairs and Gender and other key stakeholders must ensure that sex education is raising the much needed awareness on the dangers of early marriages.

In 2000, the government introduced sex education into the curriculum - covering reproductive health, and avoidance of early initiation into sex - as part of efforts to slow the country’s HIV prevalence rate among young people.

But it seems the curriculum is failing the country’s school-aged children. More so, parents and guardians believe the introduction of sex education is only serving to corrupt our kids.

As early marriage is a big threat to Zimbabwe’s girl-child, more needs to be done to curb it and protect the girl child.

Frankly, early marriages threaten national economic development, as bright and intelligent girls are forced out of school to become cheap labour and child bearers in their homesteads.

In a foreword, The State of World Population 2013 report says: “When a girl becomes pregnant, her present and future change radically, and rarely for the better. Her education may end, her job prospects evaporate, and her vulnerabilities to poverty, exclusion and dependency multiply.”

Accordingly, it is high time we go back to the basics and stick to the African proverb, “It takes the whole village to raise a child” and places emphasis on the need for collective parenting since in our culture; it is not just the responsibility of biological parents to bring up a child, but of the whole community.

Collective parenting must be an integral part of keeping teenage girls from engaging in premarital sex, and the government must also adopt a holistic approach which does not dwell on changing girls’ behaviour, but seeks to change attitudes in society so as to curb the scourge of early marriages.