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Ruth Butaumocho Gender Editor
Sixty-seven-year-old Rabison Mugare of Hurungwe assembled a mini gathering to accept the bride price for his 14-year old daughter, Sekai, who had eloped the previous month to a well-known polygamous cotton farmer in a nearby village.
The occasion took place just after dusk as villagers were preparing to retire to bed after a hard day’s work in the fields.

Although his wife had initially refused to accept the bride price, threatening to alert the village head about incident, the couple eventually reached an amicable decision to marry off their daughter.

Besides, they badly needed the lobola to pay off a debt they had accrued to finance a cotton crop that was later destroyed by hailstorm. In less than an hour, the Mugare family were through with the formalities and immediately bade their in-laws farewell, repeatedly cautioning them not to disclose to anyone what had just transpired.

The story of Sekai is not unique. She joins hundreds of girls who are being married off before they reach the age of 18 in Zimbabwe.

Although the reasons vary with each region, culture and community, the motivation is poverty. Most impoverished families are marrying off young girls to get rid of a mouth to feed at an early age, and to replace it with a possible share in the lobola price.

Tradition is also believed to be one of the major reasons fuelling early child marriages despite numerous Government efforts to stamp the practice through the introduction of several legislatives such as the Sexual Offences Act.

In its report titled “Married Too Soon: Child Marriage in Zimbabwe”, a local research organisation, Research and Advocacy Unit, noted that early marriages were being fuelled by poverty, beliefs, impunity, traditional teenage delinquency and religion.

Different religious groups, but mainly the apostolic sects, have been accused of fuelling the practice by marrying off young girls to old congregates of the church. The practice within the apostolic sect contributes a huge percentage to early child marriages.

While several studies acknowledge that accurate data on the extent of the child marriage is difficult to get because many marriages go unregistered and the girl’s actual age may be falsified, the United Nations Population Fund 2012 reports that at least 31 percent of girls are married before the age of 18 years in Zimbabwe, with 15 percent of them getting married by the age of 15.

Gokwe is one of the worst affected areas with an estimated 60 percent of girls being married or made pregnant before they turn 16, while areas like Buhera, Marange, Rusape and other areas where the apostolic sects are predominant were also singled out in the study as hot spots for early child marriages.

A headman in Murambinda, Mr Pedzisai Murambinda, who presides over 42 villages – where the practice is quite prevalent – said early child marriages are an eyesore in the area.

“We have been having problems. We have been educating church leaders within the apostolic sects to discourage their members from marrying off young girls, but our efforts have been futile.

“Even when we try to engage the police, the culprits often cover up the offence, and in some instances frustrate police’s efforts to bring the perpetrators to book.

And this is largely so because many people are not aware of the dangers of early child marriages on the victims and the nation at large.

The continued increase in child marriages means that girls’ education is  greatly disturbed, the country will witness an increase in child mortality and more girls will die while giving birth, eroding the gains that Zimbabwe had achieved in child mortality.

Child marriages are dangerous because they put girls in a vicious cycle of poverty and reduce their opportunities of having a good life later in the future.

Apart from the social stigma they are likely to face, girls end up in violent marriages because of the power dynamics within those relationships. They also experience birth complications and the practice has been deemed to cause high mortality and child mortality rates.

Girls who marry while young are particularly at risk from their partners or their parents families. They are consistently more likely to be beaten or threatened by their husbands than girls who marry later. Often married to much older men, they are likely to believe that a man is sometimes justified in beating his wife than women who marry later.

Apart from worsening poverty among already impoverished societies, child marriages directly hinder the achievement of six goals of the eight millennium development goals. With less than a year to go before the deadline beckons, the practice alone is likely to push Zimbabwe and other nations in the region further off the mark. It has also been observed that child brides suffer emotional pressures from their families and husbands or in-laws can limit their ability to make decisions about their own bodies as well as making decisions on their own lives.

While some of the victims of early child marriages might not be able to relive heart-rending accounts of the practice, the few who have been courageous enough to bare their souls, say early child marriages are brutal.

Making her first public comments soon after forming a trust to curb early child marriages, Makanaka Trust, former Star Kidznet presenter, Makanaka Wakatama said early child marriages were not rosy.

“What I endured was hell. Early child marriages are just brutal, wrong and should not be allowed to happen. It destroys your dignity, makes you hopeless and shatters your entire dreams,” she said.

Makanaka said although she has been accused of being a gold digger, spoiled girl and a home wrecker, she will stand upright in her condemnation of early child marriages.

“I regret what I did. It was wrong, that is why I am fighting to end early child marriages so that a lot of girls can be saved from the trauma, humiliation and all the problems I went through,” she said.

Despite the increase in cases of early child marriages, all hope is not lost. The Government and different stakeholders have now launched several nationwide campaigns to curb the problem.

At the beginning of this year, the Zimbabwe Council of Chiefs, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development and Plan International rolled out an awareness campaign for the country’s 272 chiefs so they can reach out to their constituencies on the dangers of child marriages.

Plan International programme support manager Mr Zvidzai Chidhakwa acknowledged the need to work with traditional leaders, saying they were influential community leaders able to put an end to child marriages.

“We are working with chiefs and have set up workshops where we educate them on the dangers of child marriages which include robbing them of their childhood and education as well as destroying their prospects of individual development.

“After acquiring that information then they can convey it to their subordinates. They need to be educated on the plight of the girl child because they are the ones at the grassroots level where child marriages are prevalent. So they should be able to influence the behavioural change within their communities,” said Mr Chidhakwa.

ZCC president Fortune Charumbira said it was critical for traditional leaders to revive cultural education in communities and raise awareness among villagers to curb child marriages.

“There is need to revive cultural education through cascading the information on ending child marriages to all 272 chiefs in provincial meetings and ensuring that they further disseminate the same information to the headman, village heads and ultimately the community at large,” he said.