WUNRN
International Center for Research on
Women - ICRW
Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcda48K-nR0
ETHIOPIA - END CHILD MARRIAGE NOW -
CHILD BRIDES - VIDEO +
Innovative Program Gives Hope to
Child Brides
09/19/2012 - By Gillian Gaynair
AMHARA
REGION, Ethiopia – Kasanesh squats to make a fire, using one hand to stack wood
and the other to steady her daughter, who reaches for her mother's breast.
Since she awoke at 7 a.m., Kasanesh has made injera, Ethiopia's traditional
spongy flatbread. She gathered firewood. And she walked about a half-mile to
fetch water from a spring, hauling the container across rocky terrain to her
home.
There was a time when 17-year-old Kasanesh's mornings would
include a walk to school. But that seems like a far away memory these days,
ever since her parents halted her studies to make her wed a man she didn't
know. Now Kasanesh feels she has no choice: "I have a home and a
child," she says through an interpreter, "so I can't go back to
school now."
Strikingly beautiful with haunting, distant eyes, Kasanesh
is one of hundreds of thousands of child brides in northern Ethiopia's Amhara
region who, despite laws against it, are married in often secret ceremonies to
men eight or more years their senior. Most don't learn they're getting married
until a week or days before the ceremony. Many remain isolated in remote
villages, unable to attend community gatherings or even church. Instead, their
lives – at least their first few years of marriage – are often defined by
household chores and tending to their husbands' and in-laws' needs.
Wives and mothers, but not yet adults, these girls spend
their days largely invisible to others.
The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), in
partnership with CARE-Ethiopia and
the Nike Foundation,
is working to create a different environment for married girls like Kasanesh,
one where they are valued by others and where they can gain the ability to have
a kernel of control over their lives. By empowering them, these child brides
are likely to have a better chance of not only becoming healthy, productive
adults, but also mothers who may one day stand against their own daughters
being forced to marry.
The effort is called TESFA, which means "hope" in
Amharic. It targets 5,000 child brides in Amhara – most are between 14 and 19 –
with education about sexual and reproductive health, how to save and invest
money and lessons on everything from how to care for a newborn to how to
communicate in a relationship. It is one of the few programs worldwide for the
often overlooked population of married adolescent girls. And
today, in honor of the first International
Day of the Girl on Oct. 11, ICRW begins a four-part series, with a new
story each week offering a rare glimpse into the lives of child brides and how
TESFA is making a difference for them.
The program is one of ICRW's latest endeavors in a nearly
20-year commitment to documenting the causes and consequences of child marriage
and devising solutions
to prevent it. ICRW is now taking a unique approach by focusing on understanding
what works to empower girls who are already married and better conditions for
them within the system they must live.
Meanwhile, calls for action are growing louder, with
international organizations such as ICRW banding together to spotlight child
brides' plight and their potential. This unprecedented attention is being
driven by new groups such as Girls Not
Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, and individuals like
photojournalist Stephanie
Sinclair, who makes powerful images to educate the world about the lives of
girls forced into
marriage. Grassroots groups around the world are mobilizing against the
practice, too. And legislators in the United States, Great Britain and
elsewhere are pushing legislation
to eliminate early marriage.
Advocates and research experts say that the movement to end
child marriage and support girls like Kasanesh who are already married will not
only better the lives of millions of girls worldwide – it will also better the
world.
"Keeping unmarried girls out of wedlock and in school,
as well as providing more information and resources to already married
girls,has a ripple effect," says Ann Warner, an ICRW
senior gender and youth specialist. "Educated, informed and empowered
girls will have a better chance to make the most of their lives, and to
contribute productively to their families and communities. And that ultimately
has a huge impact on major development priorities, such as improving global
health, literacy and economic security, and alleviating hunger and gender-based
violence."
Childhood ends after vows
Forced marriage persists around the globe, from Nepal to
Nicaragua and Yemen to Uganda. It is a complex tradition, one fueled
significantly by poverty and gender inequality; tied to parents' desire to
provide more for their family, and to a certain extent, protect their
daughters.
In many developing nations, where girls are often valued
less than boys, marrying daughters early can be viewed as a way to ease a
family's financial burden; it's one less mouth to feed. In some countries, child marriage can
mean a small dowry or a gift of cattle or land to farm from the future
husband's family. And as is often the case worldwide, including in Amhara,
girls' virginity holds a high price: many parents believe early marriage
protects their daughters from sexual violence and "dishonor," and
secures their economic future.
But for girls like Kasanesh, there is little benefit to this
arrangement. Girls' childhood swiftly ends with the exchange of vows:
Worldwide, most child brides drop out of school. Girl wives are more likely to
experience domestic violence. Their mobility is restricted and they have little
power in household decisions. And in many countries, young brides often are at
risk of a slew of health problems, including life-threatening complications
from early pregnancy and childbirth.
"The overwhelming majority of births to adolescents
happen within marriage, not outside it," says ICRW's Jeffrey Edmeades,
a social demographer who leads the TESFA program for ICRW. "That's why
supporting these girls when they first wed and become mothers is so critical –
it will impact their and their family's health and economic status for
decades."
Despite the tragic outcomes and despite the pull of custom,
research experts say traditions can change. There are signs of this happening
in Ethiopia: A national law requires consenting couples to be at least 18 years
old to marry. Elementary school students learn about the law in their civics
classes, as well as about the health and economic consequences of early
marriage. The country's health ministry has built clinics and deployed workers
into villages to provide much-needed services and education, including about
early marriage.
Such educational efforts are leading some families to
consider alternatives to early marriage.Still, more global attention is needed
for girls who are already married and no longer in school – girls who feel they
have no choice, no chance for a fuller life.
They are girls like Kasanesh who, for now, remains one of
the invisible ones.
A young bride's new life
Kasanesh
and her 28-year-old husband Shiferaw live at the edge of a cliff in a
small, traditional home with dirt floors and a cone-shaped straw roof. Most
every day for Kasanesh is filled with household chores – gathering firewood and
water, caring for their 1-year-old daughter, cooking, sweeping.
Kasanesh is not yet participating in TESFA, but will start
in December, along with nearly 480 other married girls.
She speaks almost in a whisper, her eyes downcast. A large
cross hangs from her neck, and like many girls here, she wears a loose dark
green dress to her calves. She is happiest, she says, when she's able to be
with other girls her age.
Kasanesh is Shiferaw's second wife; his first marriage ended
in divorce. Friends alerted Kasanesh that she was going to be married three days
before the 8 p.m. ceremony. "I was not happy when I found out,"
Kasanesh says. "I was more happy in school."
On her wedding night, an uncle brought her to her in-laws'
home where she lived for her first year of marriage. "I cried the first
two, three days," she says. "And after that, the family helped me get
through it."
After a year, Kasanesh moved in with Shiferaw, a lanky man
with an easy, friendly smile. "I didn't understand what was going on. I
was still a child," she says. Later, she didn't understand how a baby came
to grow in her belly.
Kasanesh's future, however, may already have been determined
by her own parents' decision. She wanted to finish her studies, get a
government job one day. She feels there's no chance of that, now that she's
married.
She is a different person today since being forced to wed.
"I'm much older now than I used to be a year ago,"
Kasanesh says. "I feel like I've lived more than my age."
Gillian Gaynair is ICRW's senior
writer and editor.