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Zambia Daily Mail

International Women's Day

March 8, 2008 

Please scroll to PHOTO of Kapenda Buyamba of Zambia, child bride and mother, proud to return to school

Zambia - Child Bride Proud to Return to School

By Sally Chiwama in Mporokoso

Zambia: Kapenda Buyamba is only 16 years old but she has already been in married two years, as if that was not enough, she is heavily pregnant and expecting her second baby. Her first one is two and half years old.

 Buyamba says, she got married at a tender age of thirteen and a half after being impregnated by a boy who is now her husband. She says that there was not much to do in the camp and they had little food from her family and so she had to fend for her self most of the times. Buyamba was not ashamed to say that she was doing her first grade at one of the schools in the camp.

 “Nimeowa nilikuwa na myaka kumi na tatu” (I got married when I was 13 years old,” she said in Kiswahili.

Exact figures of the number of early marriages are difficult to obtain, as so many Camp marriages are unregistered and unofficial. However, Buyamba is probably one of the many girls whose marriage will never be documented anywhere.

Namanda Mateele Project Manager of HODI a non-governmental organization that works in the camp on issues of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) says that her organization addresses issues such as early marriages, defilement and gender based violence amongst the refugee community.

Mateele says a task force on SGBV and a Youth Group were formed to look at these issues so that youths can also come together and discuss issues that concern them.

“We have formed an SGBV youth group with 56 girls and boys, this was after we realized that there was a lot of sex amongst adolescents,” said Mateele. She said that in the youth groups are encouraged to put their education ahead of anything else. She said that one of their most important tasks was to try to convince the girls that have fallen pregnant to go back to school. 

 The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) show that early marriage in any place including  Mwange Refugee Camp was part of a broader approach of building a “protective environment” for children which shelters them from this type of exploitation.  It adds that early marriage can have harmful consequences to children including health problems, spousal abuse and the denial of education. Once married, girls often do not go back to school.

The society at Mwange refugee camp should therefore ensures that girls have an equal opportunity in education  so that families and communities are aware of the serious risks of early marriage for young girls that legislators are committed to prohibiting early marriage and that services are available to counsel young girls who have been abused.

To stop the inhuman attitude towards girls who are involved in early marriages The CRC says there should be stringent laws against the practice of child marriages, and both the governments and the civil societies should initiate campaigns in every community on the evil consequences of child marriages.

It was observed that refugees at Mwange refugee camp who have gone through early marriages have embraced the concept of going back to school even though they are young mothers and fathers.

ZAMWA spoke to Mitwele Mwelu a grade 12 pupil, married with three children who decided to go back to school.

 “Nime furahi sana, kurudi kwa shule “(Am very happy to come back to school)”. Mwelu says she is even happier that she is now writing her final exams so that when she finishes high school she will also be able to work. She says that her husband encourages her to work hard as he is a teacher at the same school.

Heri Mupata a grade 11 pupils is also another married boy with a child who is very proud to be in school and says that he is preparing for his future and have a good life with his family. Mupata says his wife is also doing a skills development course and takes the baby with her when she goes for her class.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most comprehensive international instrument for the definition and enforcement of human rights of children. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the only international human rights instrument that consistently uses both masculine and feminine pronouns throughout and makes it explicit that the rights contained therein apply equally to female and male children. The CRC Convention will soon be turning 18 years old and nearing maturity, progress achieved in areas such as education and health cannot be claimed for areas such as child participation and special protection. In many parts of the world, many girls are still subjected to various forms of violence.

The CRC notes that girls are still stigmatized by societal inferior status. “They rarely have the opportunity to express their views and concerns, let alone have them taken into account. Many girls are deprived of their inheritance rights, dragged into early or forced marriages, female genital mutilation, trafficking, exploited in the sex trade or in the labor market but this must not be let to go on. Let us all join in the fight against early marriages and looking at a girl as “just a girl.

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