Why mored education is needed to fight forced marriages in Tanzania

I am of the school of thought that child (early/forced) marriages are totally wrong. Of course, all child marriages are forced, as the young child involved is not in a position to make the lifetime decision, it’s the parents/elders that make that decision for her.

Forced marriage is completely not only illegal but evil as well. Although forced marriage in most cases involves girls below the age of 18 but sometimes it happens to those above 18 years. In the two scenarios, most of the time it’s a girl child on the receiving end (a victim).

The pain of young girls being forced into marriage must be unbearable. Sabra Issa Machano, founder of Warrior Women Foundation, recently narrated in her instagram account how a young girl committed suicide after being forced to marry a man who was not her choice.

The lady, expressing her pain and dismay about a forced marriage gone wrong in Zanzibar, wrote: ‘We should consider very much how our children are affected and hurt…until a child takes the decision to commit suicide because of being forced to marry a man she does not want.’

Sabra is talking about the girl child who had taken to her parents a young man she was in love with. The two were in love and wanted their parents’ blessings to get married.

Unfortunately, the girl’s parents rejected her choice. Instead, for whatever reasons, the parents forcefully wanted her to marry another man of their choice.

The young lady could hear none of that. She finally made a ‘bad’ decision of committing suicide instead of giving in to the whims of her parents.

After she refused to marry her parents’ choice, her elder brother punished her excessively to the extent of making her faint, so, it is claimed. It was after regaining her consciousness that she made the decision to end her life.

When the brother came to know that her sister had committed suicide, he is said to have been by a huge shock that left him paralysed.

Sabra is a well respected personality, inspirational speaker, activist and a former top executive in Zanzibar. I have good reasons to believe her story. Such stories in our society get hidden, and the girls’ voices, after their death, are forgotten.

In the days of our grandfathers, it was commonplace to girls to be forced into marriage often without their consent. I recall a ‘bad’ culture practised in Lushoto (which I hated) whereby a man who wanted to marry a certain girl, would simply abduct her and take her to his home. After staying with her forcefully, he would send his elders to the girl’s parents that he had married their daughter.

Today, such brazen bravado into committing such an evil does not take place openly.

Thanks to activists like Sabra who disclose that young girls sometimes are forced by parents into marriage.

The Child Marriage Fact Sheet, Issue of August 2014, noted that “Tanzania has one of the highest child marriage prevalence rates in the world”… with close to two in every five girls marrying before they are 18.”

In Sabra’s post about the suicide, there was a commentator who noted: “In Zanzibar, such things (forced marriages) are like tradition and custom… parents don’t care about the girl’s happiness. It pains a lot when you have the love of your life but your parents reject him”.

But sometimes not even the boy child is safe. Ever heard of ‘ndoa ya mkeka?’ Swahili expression for “marriage tied on the mat,” This happens after a young man is caught in a compromising position (kufumaniwa) with a girl and he is forced to marry her. Whether it’s a girl or a boy, forced marriage is a human right violation.