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.
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