marriage it is a topic that is really
close to my heart I’m very passionate
about issues of women and children so
before I go into the talk I just want
you to do a short exercise for me I want
you to all close your eyes please all
close your eyes for me everybody I don’t
want to see any open eyes everybody
close your eyes and then I want you to
think or look back at your childhood
think about the time you were ten years
old to the up to when you in 15 your
childhood through the age of 15 to 18
and what you’re reflecting on that I
want you to think about or even reflect
on some of the things you enjoy doing
most in your childhood what were some of
the things you enjoy doing what were
some of your dreams and aspirations can
you think about that can you reflect and
remember what did you think you know as
children we like to dream and say oh
this is what I would do when I grow up
think about those things now I want you
to open your eyes I just one maybe one
or two people to tell me what were some
of the things you enjoy doing as a child
just one or two because there’s not much
time so i won’t go through everybody
just 1% of a years okay that’s being a
child and it dreams aspirations were
some of the things you dreamt about when
you’re a child all right okay so I want
to just ask a quick question as well in
your reflection how many of you actually
when you looked at back at your
childhood ever thought in your childhood
or desired to be in a marriage raising
children taking gone family
responsibilities did anybody think of
nobody as a child right
okay in your childhood Harmon of you can
tell me they didn’t have any dreams or
aspirations how many of you nobody right
we all have dreams and aspirations we
all want to be somebody in life we all
think of when I grow up this is what i’m
going to do and i’m sure most of you
came across that question as children
when they say why do you want to be when
you grow up oh I want to be a doctor I
want to be an engineer I want to be a
nurse I want to be a pilot I want to be
a teacher you know all these things that
come up when you ask children what they
want to be when they grow up so I
believe every child has some kind of
dream every child loves to be to go out
and play and hang out with friends and
just be a child be silly and as I child
myself I enjoy doing those things I
enjoyed playing hang out with my friends
you know just being a child and being
silly you know those are the things i
thought about because I’m a child I
should be allowed to be a child and do
those kind of things but unfortunately
so many millions of children around the
world don’t have the privilege of being
a child it’s very very sad out there and
the saddest thing I find is that the
same people are the very people that are
supposed to be protecting them that are
supposed to be looking after them are
the very ones that actually sentenced
them to lives of suffering I found that
to be very sad now some of you may ask
yourself an academic what is she doing
with issues of children yes I’m an
environmentalist but because I work a
lot in development I work a lot on
development issues this is how i came to
discover some of these issues i wasn’t
always aware of issues of child marriage
so the question I ask myself all the
time is what will it take to end child
marriage I ask myself this question all
the time so I want to just take you
before we even get into the issue of
child marriage I just want to ensure
that we are all on the same page when we
are talking about children what we mean
okay and if you look at that definition
basically a child is every human being
below the age of 18 and that is
according to the United Nations
rates of children and then I put in this
quotation I really loved it by Nelson
Mandela because when I’m talking about
these issues I like to also relate them
to to issues of human rights as well
because we all have certain rights and
when we are treated in a certain manner
some of our rights are violated so I
love this definition and or disco tation
and I just want I put it there so that
you can have it at the back of your mind
as I talk through this whole process so
that you can understand and you’ll see
how it then starts to fit in but as you
are aware we all have our rights
children are also human beings who have
rights I know there’s attendance to say
no they are just children they can do
whatever but they also have rights and
they are if you go to the to the
document of children’s right you’ll find
a lot of them day but what I want to
really bring out through this talk is to
highlight what it means for the
children’s right when we impose marriage
on them and this basically for children
when imposing marriage on children it is
really a grave violation of their human
rights it is to challenge their humanity
it is to deny them their right of to
dignity education health and life free
of abuse and cohesion freedom of thought
a right to be self-guided against
negligee neglect and exploitation and a
right to choose as an adult weather and
whom to marry it is also to deny to deny
these rights is really to dehumanize
them so I want you to keep this at the
back of your mind as I go through his
this talk and now I just want to share
with you and take you through how I came
to develop an interest in child marriage
because I’m sure some of you will be
wondering is he a child bride herself
how come she’s so passionate about this
ID she is talking about this no I’m not
a child bride actually I had a privilege
of enjoying my childhood because I found
good I had parents who allowed me to be
a child and allowed me to dream and
allowed
to aspire to be Who I am today allowed
me to go to school and because my
parents were educators they’re really
instilled in us the importance of
education and for them education was no
option we had to go through school and
really get the best education that we
could so my interest in child marriage
came seven years ago when I was on a
mission in South Sudan I had gone there
to do some project evaluations of the
you know there is a lot of international
agencies there condom having development
programs so i was there to evaluate some
of those projects and you can see me i
had to you can see me right there right
there right there and you can see i had
to dress like them so that i could just
fit in and be able to interact with them
but on this visit i met a young girl was
on on one on the team of field workers
that we’re going to work with me and
this young girl should so much interest
on how i became to be around and how
come i could come in and do all this
work because they are not used to girls
or women coming in to do this kind of
work that used to men doing the work so
she was really curious and i started
expressing myself and telling them she
wanted to know what my childhood was
like as well so i began to also engage
with her and you know she became she
became very close to me in the process
and we started to talk a lot and she
started to tell me about her story as a
child and what she had gone through and
it is then that I came to learn that she
had met she had been married off when
she was 12 and she started explaining to
me the processes that she went through
before she even got married and she told
me the challenges that she had
experienced during that process and then
she went on to narrate how she had been
circumcised and then because through
circumcision is when they become women
and ready for marriage so she told me
that process of circumcision she told me
how that she had been stitched up and
and I just left a small hole enough for
her to be able to urinate and have her
menses so for me
that was a shock and I just could not
understand how it is possible in this
day and age to do such things I had
never heard of such things so you can
imagine the shock I had and for a minute
there I thought maybe I’m dreaming and
somebody’s telling me all these stories
and because I could not believe it it
was just unbelievable for me and as she
went on at some point actually my mind
went so far that I couldn’t understand
what it is that she was trying to tell
me so I kept asking all these questions
and I said are you real are you telling
me the truth and she says this is the
honest truth and my story is not the
only one cause all the girls that you
see around here have gone through the
same thing and from that day forward I
just say to myself you know I need to go
and educate myself more on child
marriages understand what is about see
are there any more stories out there
like this because our stealing in total
shock trying to understand what how this
could be allowed to happen so that is
how I got involved in really looking
into issues of child marriage and the
impacts so on my quest to understand the
practice and the magnitude of child
marriage i came across so many stories
out i was doing these searches and i
came across a number of images i listen
to a lot of stories I read a lot of
stories and I realized this is really
really sad so I would just quickly run
through the images I’m not sure if maybe
later on this can be allowed for people
to view some of the stories just to see
what it looks like but these are just
some of the stories i came across and
this is a tanzanian child brides so I
all these images i’m showing you have
read the girls stories and I’ve seen
what they have gone through and the
challenges that they have gone through
and what I found most sad i’m sure most
of you have maybe seen some of these
images before but this young girl how
story really made me sad because when it
broke when the news broke about this
eight-year-old who had been married to
twin somebody to
Diaz hasti Nia and how she told her
story of how she has struggled had
struggled through the marriage and how
she eventually got the court to allow
her to divorce this man it is an amazing
story if you can look it up you will
really cringe and see what it kind of
impact it has and then some of the other
stories I came across with such as those
you can see this is a 16 year old
screaming and really not wanting to go
to this home because they I think they
understand what kind of pain so imagine
having to go to a home of a stranger as
a child you know you’ve been in this
home you’ve been protected you are with
your family and now you are being sent
off to a stranger and you are going to
take on all these responsibilities that
are really not meant for children so
it’s a very painful experience and what
disturb be most is that most of these
girls are not allowed to continue school
that is the saddest part so they are
taken out of school and that has an
impact on their education and then what
things it impacts on their health
because most of them fall pregnant once
they are into this they get into these
marriages and you can imagine a young
girl having to carry the pregnancy
through to nine months and then having
to deliver and I also discovered that
most of them suffer from a medical
condition called fistula I’m not sure
how many of you are familiar with that
web is basically through this process
because the child’s body hasn’t
developed well enough they cannot give
birth and in most cases they rupture and
in some cases they have the fiscal eyes
when they have that hole between the
vagina and the anise and what happens
the whole system is messed up so you
have the urine and feces coming all and
it’s once they go through that process
what usually happens their husbands
divorced them they are isolated and in
most cases these children are locked
away because this comes with stigma and
shame so and because you are always
smelling and your data so they lock you
away so you suffer with loneliness and
this is a child these are children that
we’re supposed to protect and love you
know but they are going through this
process at this arm through all these
difficulties and challenges at this time
and then this also made me ask a
question you know in my in my work of
gender &
and women’s empowerment you know we come
across where I mean we come across so
many statistics about women being poor
women having the face of poverty and
then you know you look back at some of
these things that happen and you ask
yourself if there are millions of
children being forced into marriage and
not allowed to continue their education
where there are dreams are shattered and
you tell me how will then they how will
they then are in their adulthood be able
to perform and contribute to the
development of their nations their
communities their households what
happens so it becomes a cycle they enter
the cycle of poverty and every year we
have at least 15 million child children
being married off before the age of 18
and as you can see from those statistics
we have 1.2 billion that actually that
are actually gone through this process
and you find that one in three girls in
the developing world has said to be
married before the age of 18 so I looked
at those statistics and I found them
quite shocking and then I also went
ahead to also look at some more on what
was going on in various countries and if
you look at those statistics you will
notice that out of those 20 top
countries with the highest rates of
child marriages 18 of them are African
countries and then we are talking about
why we are behind in development so you
ask yourself if we are actually cutting
off most of this children that have
really high potential to contribute to
the development of their nations and the
development of their communities and
households how do we expect to ever move
forward in terms of human development
because we are blocking them we are
cutting off their dreams they don’t get
to realize their potentials they don’t
get to contribute so it’s a very very
sad situation and I’m hoping that from
here some of you will go back and
educate yourself about some of these
issues and advocate and put your voices
out there because for me when I
discovered these things one of the
things i told myself is that for every
single platform i get wherever it is our
continue to talk about these stories
until every single child is free make
yourself aware of what is happening and
find a way that you can contribute find
a way that you can engage there are so
many programs going on around there are
so many activities happening to try and
prevent child marriages but
unfortunately a lot of poor don’t know
about it and so they don’t engage so
much when I see protests happening I
always wish that we could have some
national protests with a hashtag and
child marriage you know in our countries
whether you have a high rate in your
country or not in your community or not
but in solidarity of those who are
actually having this high res and the
girls who are suffering just to free
them so that one day every single child
girl child especially will be able to
enjoy the freedom of being a child the
freedom of going to school the freedom
of realizing their dream the freedom of
realizing their potential and being able
to choose who they can marry in
adulthood and not have to go through
those processes a lot of them get beaten
and then I ask myself why would a man
want to marry a child and then take this
child into his home and abuse the child
beat them up what joy do they get from
that it is one question I’ve always
wanted ask men who are actually engaged
in these practices what do you gain from
a child bride we’ve had in Sierra Leone
they allowed to marry of nine-year-olds
in most countries most African countries
their culture allows them to mark to
marry children before the girl child
before she reaches puberty or before she
reaches her menses because it’s the sign
of blessings that comes upon the family
when the gold goes when she’s pure some
of them believe it is to protect her
because they believe once they reach
puberty they are likely to run around
and lose their virginity early and
therefore they are trying to protect
them and if you see the horror stories
that come from these children when they
tell their stories it is terrible and I
think we all need to unite together and
fight some of these traditions some of
which they claim because of poverty
which families decides I cannot afford
to feed all my children and she looks at
the girl child and says well this one we
can marry
because she brings in come to us there
are families that believe that so some
believe that girls are commodities so
there are a lot of traditions that don’t
value the girl child because they see
them as people who are useless so I just
wanted to highlight that we need to
start engaging in these discussions and
it’s about time we say when is enough
enough when do we say enough of abusing
our girl children and I wanted to leave
you with this image here because this is
a female chief in Malawi who has now
said enough is enough and she has
actually managed to allow more than 850
child marriages in Malawi in the county
that she’s working in and she has also
managed to work with a lot of chiefs and
made them sign contracts because in
Malawi they have now passed a law that
the age on which a girl can marry is now
18 but they are trying to raise it to 21
because they feel 18 is still young but
you know even with the loss that we have
today there’s so many loopholes because
in most laws that it allows that even
though they prohibit the marriage of a
child they say that if parents consent
then it can be allowed so that is a
problem so when I looked at all the
initiatives that are happening to end
child marriage personally I felt the
most effective one would be to actually
directly target the men who are marrying
these children and also the parents so
when I looked at all the initiatives
that are going on I thought like what is
being done is actually not enough we
need to target them Benoit marrying the
children and the parents who are
actually giving away their children to
be married educate them let them
understand the value of a girl child
understand the girl needs to be given
that opportunity so for me that has been
very important and then I’ll leave you
without quotation to educate girls is to
reduce poverty it is very important thank you very much