STOP EARLY MARRIAGES

UNDER-AGE girls are getting into early marriages either by choice or after being coerced by parents especially in the countryside.

Numerous cases are going unnoticed and it is sad that some parents wrongly believe that a girl who has come of age should immediately get married.

It is misleading to justify that early marriages are being done in line with tradition and culture.

In fact, cultural values demand that a female should only get into matrimony as a mature person and at an age appropriate enough to bear physiological changes that come with mothering.

Therefore, Kawila Primary School Headteacher Oggie Hamiyenze was very much in order to take the bull by its horns.

The Head-teacher was well in order to report parents who married off their under-age girls to the police for prosecution in Siavonga.

Mr Hamiyenze’s action may be viewed as extreme, but what is in fact extreme is getting a girl as young as 13 years old into marriage, perhaps, for the sake of getting wealth from the bridegroom.

It appears though that there are strong social economic factors that perpetuate early marriages.

In the rural areas for instance, economic hardships are seen as compelling factors that force families to marry off their daughters at the expense of sending them to school.

Thus some families would rather get wealth out of their daughter’s marriage than spend money on that child’s education; this is a sad reality.

This is more prevalent in rural areas and periurban locations where poverty levels as well as illiteracy levels are high.

Poverty and illiteracy are intertwined in this aspect.

In worse scenarios, some parents who are not even poor still believe that a girl or a female is there for reproductive purposes and force them into early marriages.

The effect is that girls have had their health compromised especially during pregnancy and also during the post-natal phase.

Health practitioners and other authorities have time and again spoken against early marriages because they lead to high mortality rates and also child malnutrition.

This is because the young girls are not ready for pregnancy and childbearing; physiological responses to mothering for them is a challenge and lead to death.

When this happens, the husband is punished for what is traditionally referred to as inchila, death caused by a promiscuous husband who engages in illicit affairs while the wife is pregnant.

Children born from a young mother may not receive the much-needed motherly care and hence they end up malnourished.

These are the factors which need careful analysis and publicity in villages and other areas in order to effectively eliminate early marriages.

This, in fact, should start with traditional rulers – chiefs and headmen – then ordinary members of various communities.

It is also important to involve the Church as well as community groupings in the education campaign against early marriages.

Men and boys in villages must be educated on the consequences of the law in as far as early marriages are concerned.

They must be told that marrying a girl under the age of 16 is a serious offence of defilement which attracts a very long jail sentence while parents can equally be arrested as accomplices to such a crime.

Accolades to Mr Hamiyenze for reporting greedy parents to the police; they should be arrested.

Siavonga District Commissioner Lovemore Kanyama should lay his hands off the Headteacher and instead turn his venom on parents and other perpetrators of early marriages.

Hands off please!