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Vincent Gono
THE 70-year-old Simon Mhizha (not real name) wakes up from a reed mat under the shade of a mango tree. Holding his oversize pair of trousers from falling, he rubs his eyes that are sinking into their sockets on his wizened face evidently drugged with sleep. He looks into the distant earth where his fields are and sees the exhausted earth groaning and quivering under the monotonous glare of the sun. Spirals of heat rise from the ground as if from molten lava.
A panting lizard crawls painfully over a fevered rock in search of a shady crevice.
Cattle and dogs cringe under the scanty shade of the trees and wait for the rain to deliver them from the heat and thirst.
Instead the heat grew more intense and oppressive each day, singeing and stifling all living things with an invisible sheet of fire, which only the rain could put out. As if with unrestrained glee, the sun unmercifully threw down its scorching rays and made people squirm at the discomforting crawl of heat.
To some the heat was a menace, to others it was just a hot spell fuelled by the El Nino trend as the weather forecasters say, but to the villagers like old Mhizha in the remote countryside it signalled nothing less than a grim drought that would stare them in the face for the better part of the year.
Signs of drought began showing late last year although a ray of hope shimmered with some rains that gave the animals pastures and people water to drink.
The damage had, however, already been done to the crops that were in the fields and those that re-planted with the late rains failed to help the situation either as winter is already upon us while some of the maize crops are not yet mature.
Mhizha is one of the few farmers who did not give heed to the advice not to plant again and now he regrets his actions — his loss.
He, however, has a plan, maybe the one he dreamt of when he was asleep. He is grandfather to a brood of young girls left in his care by his daughters who departed to the great beyond and due to the pressing economic situation, none of them managed to go beyond Grade Seven. They are all at home helping out in the fields and the garden.
Mhizha called his wife and suggested a plan to marry off the eldest of their grandchild Mary who has just turned 14 to a 60-year-old rich Apostolic sect polygamous leader Madzibaba Sam so that they get something as part of lobola to feed the rest of the family. His wife nodded incessantly to the suggestion even saying she had long thought about it.
They agreed with each other, oblivious of the fact that they were conspiring to commit a crime, morally and legally for Mary is just a child who needs protection from the same people who are selling her off into a marriage union that she did not consent to. The justification is that she should take care of her little sisters on their behalf and on behalf of their dead mothers.
And when approached, the apostolic sect leader agreed arguing that he had long received that in his spiritual revelations.
His argument is that he was supposed to marry virgins. He said most of the girls were already defiled and in their religion they were already other people’s wives which means taking her as wife will be equivalent to committing adultery.
“The first person to deflower a girl becomes her husband even if they are not staying together. Most of these older girls have long been defiled and taking them as wives will cause me to sin as I will be committing adultery. All men that are sleeping with girls they did not deflower are committing adultery,” Madzibaba Sam said unapologetically.
Such is the situation that some young girls find themselves in especially with the drought that hit most parts of the country and calls have been made that such activities remain illegal and those that engage in them will face the full wrath of the law.
Provincial Officer in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development in Masvingo Mr Joseph Mupinga said although such incidents were becoming fewer owing to the multi-sectorial campaigns carried out by stakeholders in the fight for the girl child’s rights there were still some communities that believed it was their moral right to do what they want with their children’s lives.
“Yes, there are certain societies that are still marrying off young children and with the drought this year such incidents are bound to be on the increase. But let us warn those that may want to do it that they should be prepared to face the law.
“It is illegal. Girl children are not goods and should therefore not be commercialised. We know there is a drought but the Government has promised to ensure that the communities get enough food. There is no excuse for those that want to engage in illegalities; even poverty is not an excuse.
“There are a lot of complications and long term effects in marrying children. Biologically their bodies will not be ready for that and this gives rise to cases of giving birth to children with deformities and besides most of the marriages do not last. We have therefore been engaging traditional leaders to protect the girl children from such kind of abuse by their parents and guardians.
“We know there are some among the girl children who rush into marriages even without being forced. They think of marriage as a poverty escape route but that is not true. They should go to school first and consider marriage when the right time comes,” said Mr Mupinga.
The trend has become a global problem and is not confined to Zimbabwe alone.
According to a 2012 report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on ending child marriages, an estimated 15 million girls under 18 years are married worldwide every year.
Zimbabwe is among 41 countries with the highest prevalence of child marriages in the world. On average, one out of three girls in the country gets married before their 18th birthday. The report says five percent of women aged 15-49 years currently in marriage or union were married before the age of 15 (rural 3 percent, urban 2 percent).
A report from UNFPA and other agencies shows that the problem is more common in rural areas compared to urban areas. This is because rural dwellers are more exposed to the drivers of child marriage than their urban counterparts.
A 2012 UNFPA report based on data collected between 2000 and 2011 across Zimbabwe concluded that women aged 20- 24 years and living in rural areas were twice as likely to be married or in union before age 18 than their urban counterparts, adding that this urban-rural divide has remained at roughly the same level since 2006.
Although affecting children across the various sections of society, early marriage in Zimbabwe has also been prevalent among the apostolic sects, especially the Johanne Marange Church, which has an estimated membership of 1, 2 million people across the country.
The 2012 UNFPA survey concluded that child marriage is highest in Mashonaland Central Province (50 percent), followed by Mashonaland West Province (42 percent), Masvingo (39 percent), Mashonaland East (36 percent), Midlands (31 percent), Manicaland (30 percent), Matabeleland North (27 percent), Harare (19 percent), Matabeleland South (18 percent), and Bulawayo (10 percent) although the report does not provide the reasons for the variations.
There seems to be a deep rooted cultural and religious problem that has permitted child marriages to flourish within the Zimbabwean set up and the trend seems to be going on. The Minister of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Cde Nyasha Chikwinya, said her Ministry was working on a robust programme that would ensure that child marriages were eradicated.
“We have so far involved chiefs and we are yet to go to members of the community so that we can involve them in eradicating child marriages that have become a problem not only in Zimbabwe, but in Africa as a whole. We want this matter solved although it will take a little bit of time,” she said.
Cde Chikwinya said Parliament was in support of eradicating child marriages and there was a drive to realign laws in the first quarter of last year so that women and children’s rights were catered for. She urged girl children to report the issue of child marriages without fear.
Deputy President of the chief’s council, Chief Mtshane Khumalo said there were collaborative efforts with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and gender activists to curb child marriages, although this was still in its infant stages. He said they had engaged PLAN International and meetings were last year held with chiefs so that they could reduce child marriages in their communities.
Online Reporter