Online Reporter
WHILE the law in Zimbabwe since 2022 forbids marriage to under-18s, and former laws to under-16s, child marriages remain common for a wide spread of reasons that make the prohibitions in the Marriage Act of 2022 difficult to enforce.
Estimates by Unicef suggest that a third of all girls marrying in Zimbabwe are under 18, and five percent probably under 15 with the percentages rising in the northern provinces. Although those estimates are based on 2024 data, few consider the numbers have been more than moderately reduced over the last couple of years.
While it is impossible to have a marriage registered as a civil or customary union if either or both partners are under 18, the escape route is the unregistered customary union.
These became exceptionally common in Zimbabwe, in fact almost universal, in the days before the Marriage Act of 2022.
That Act finally brought all marriages in Zimbabwe under a single law, and allowed a monogamous customary union to be converted and registered as a civil union very easily.
Before then, the customary and civil unions were considered totally separate and once one type of union was registered, the other version could not be contracted.
For a lot of couples, an unregistered customary union followed by a church wedding was the simple solution to a desire to fulfil the customs of their family community and still be married in church.
The almost universal application of this route made unregistered customary unions the norm and totally socially acceptable and that is still largely the position today although the Marriage Act does try and enforce registration of all unions, there no longer being a reason to not doing so.
But this social acceptability is how so many underage marriages, almost all involving underage girls, can happen when so many in the neighbourhood or community have at least a deep suspicion that the girl is underage. Studies suggest that the full implications of the law are unknown or inadequately known by most people, and the old excuse that “it has always been like this” is still wheeled out.
Well, societies grow and develop. Zimbabwe’s present Constitution, the one drawn up by the people instead of being imposed by colonials or foreigners, made marriage an adults-only state of life. That shows the mass popular support for the need to be at least 18 before marriage. Several chiefs, who are the custodians of customary law, have expressed grave doubts that child marriage was ever a valid custom, rather than a perversion of what was the case.
Research suggests that both lack of knowledge of the law and lack of support for those trapped into marriage are major factors in the still appalling rates of teen marriage, along with too many families and communities willing to tolerate under-18 marriage or actively supporting such illegal unions.
We all know of some religious communities that see nothing wrong, and in fact almost encourage, marriage of girls under 16, let alone under 18. There is still an expectation in many families that when a girl leaves school at the end of Form Four, round about when she is 16, she is old enough to marry and should marry.
Perhaps the change in how lobola customs are now seen, as a single payment of cash up front rather than the old complex traditional longer-term contract between two families, tempts some parents or guardians. Perhaps the desire to see a daughter settled as soon as possible to keep out of trouble is another cause.
There is unlikely to be a single cause, rather a group of pressures. But what is obviously indisputable is that the girl’s parents must be agreeing to the early marriage since their agreement is critical, even if the girl is browbeaten into agreement. So the education on the law needs to be applied to both generations.
Secondly the girls need factual knowledge, and our near universal secondary education provides a route, with marriage law and age of consent included with a lot of other existing facets in that time set aside each week to discuss everything from HIV avoidance onwards. The teenagers can be encouraged to discuss the matter with their parents as well.
But there must also be practical support. If your average teenage girl is surrounded by parents and grandparents pushing for an early marriage and with no one on her side, she needs a workable alternative. It is all very well to expect her to report this pressure to the police, or someone else in authority, but she might feel she will be cut off by her family. It must be very lonely to be in that position.
The advance of vocational training for those not sailing through O level and proceeding to Sixth Form or formal higher education might well help families understand that a delayed marriage is not a bad idea as the girl becomes more self-supporting. That will also help with her practical options.
And that will kill off child marriage more decisively than any other measure, by giving the girl an option to withhold her consent and being able to still cope, if estranged from parents or religious community.
