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By Chipo Chabarwa
Child marriage statistics have shockingly increased and Zimbabwe has not been spared.
This is believed to have been exacerbated by a global environment suffocating from the devastating impact of Covid-19, which has had a negative effect on the girl child.
School closures, economic stress, service disruptions, pregnancy, and parental deaths due to the pandemic are putting the most vulnerable girls at increased risk of child marriage.
Government statistics show that about 1 800 young girls entered child marriages in January and February this year, and 5000 teenage girls fell pregnant during the same period.
According to a UNICEF study, 10 million additional child marriages may occur before the end of the decade, threatening years of progress in reducing the practice.
Development Scientist and Psychologist Dr Pascal Masocha, an important figure in child safeguarding with Coalition Against Child Labour in Zimbabwe (CACLAZ), said that these marriages weigh heavily on the child’s existence.
“Child marriages are some of the worst forms of child labour. Children must be allowed to enjoy their childhood without hindrance from adults,” he said.
CACLAZ reported a case of Caroline Matenga (14) from Chiredzi, who was used as payment to a traditional healer by her relatives, after a cleansing ceremony, one of the many gruesome testimonies of child exploitation.
These young girls are exposed to adulthood duties in their infancy, from abuse through intimacy, to heavy wifely chores and labour. This causes emotional, psychological and physical damage to the girls.
Hopley Can Change Initiative director Osman Ngwenya said they have had countless cases in Hopley, as the pandemic has prompted young girls to elope, some out of delinquency and peer pressure.
“As an organisation, we have started a campaign to denounce this practice,” he said.
Although cultural practices have always been a major catalyst in early marriages, during the pandemic depravity, socio-economic decay and shocking juvenile delinquency fueled the unions.
Felicia Mangwende, executive director for Regional Network of Children and Young People Trust said: “Child marriages and child exploitation are a result of a number of factors and in as much as the factors interlink they happen differently, Child marriages I personally view as a worst form of harmful practices in the society.”
On International Women’s Day this year, UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore asserted that “Covid-19 has made an already difficult situation for millions of girls even worse”.
“Shuttered schools, isolation from friends and support networks, and rising poverty have added fuel to a fire the world was already struggling to put out. But we can and we must extinguish child marriages,” said Fore.
