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Human Rights Watch
MALAWI: END WIDESPREAD CHILD MARRIAGE - REPORT
Pass Marriage Law, Adopt Comprehensive Approach
Direct Link to Full 76-Page 2014 Report:
March 6, 2014 - Lilongwe – The government of Malawi should increase efforts
to end widespread child and forced marriage, or risk worsening poverty,
illiteracy, and preventable maternal deaths in the country, Human Rights Watch
said in a report released today, ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8,
2014.
According to government statistics, half of the girls in Malawi will be married
by their 18th birthday, with some as young as age 9 or 10 being forced to
marry.
Report
Cover:
A
14-year-old girl holds her baby at her sister’s home in a village in Kanduku,
in Malawi’s Mwanza district. She married in September 2013, but her husband
chased her away. Her 15-year-old sister, in the background, married when she
was 12. Both sisters said they married to escape poverty. © 2014 Human Rights Watch
The 76-page report, “‘I’ve
Never Experienced Happiness’: Child Marriage in Malawi,”documents how child
marriage prevents girls and women from
participating in all spheres of life. The practice violates the rights to
health, to education, to be free from physical, mental, and sexual violence,
and to marry only when able and willing to give free and full consent.
“Malawi needs to set a lawful minimum marriage age to protect girls from the
abuse, exploitation, and violence that results from child marriage,” said Agnes Odhiambo, Africa
women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “President Banda should ensure
a lasting legacy for her first term in office by passing the Marriage Bill,
which supports the rights of Malawi’s girls and women.”
The Human Rights Watch report is based on in-depth interviews with 80 girls and
women in six districts in southern and central Malawi. Interviews were also
conducted with government officials, magistrates, child protection workers,
police officers in charge of child protection, social welfare officers,
traditional and religious leaders, health workers, teachers, legal and women’s
rights experts, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations, the
United Nations, and donor organizations. Human Rights Watch also observed six
Victim Support Units at police stations.
One out of every two girls in Malawi will be married before age 18. The proposed
Marriage Law would fix 18 as the clear minimum age of marriage for girls and
boys, addressing a major shortfall in Malawi’s efforts to protect girls against
child marriage. It would give equal status to parties in all marriages, and
would require that all marriages, including customary marriages, be registered
with a competent authority.
Girls told Human Rights Watch of being pressured to marry by family members
keen to receive dowry payments, because they were pregnant, or they themselves
saw marriage as a route, often unfulfilled, to escape poverty. Lucy P., 17, who
dropped out of school in 2011, told Human Rights Watch: “I got a boyfriend who
could look after me because my parents are poor. After some time he told me to
have sex with him. I became pregnant and my mother forced me to marry him.” She
said she did not use contraception because, “My boyfriend used to give me money
so I could not insist that he use condoms.”
“Adolescent pregnancy is a key driver of child marriage in Malawi,” Odhiambo
said. “Girls lack the power to negotiate safer sex with men, do not know about
contraception, and are forced by their parents to have sex for money or food.
Many end up becoming pregnant and being forced into marriage by their
families.”
Government statistics show that between 2010 and 2013, 27,612 girls in primary
and 4,053 girls in secondary schools dropped out due to marriage. During the
same period, another 14,051 primary school girls and 5,597 secondary school
girls dropped out because they were pregnant. In Malawi, the literacy rate for
men is 74 percent; for women it is 57 percent.
Girls told Human Rights Watch that marriage interrupted or ended their
education, and with it their dreams to be doctors, teachers, or lawyers. Many
said that they could not return to school after marriage because of lack of
money to pay school fees, lack of child care, unavailability of flexible school
programs or adult classes, and the need to do household chores. Others said
that their husbands or in-laws would not allow them to continue school after
marriage. Changamile F. from Chikwawa district, who dropped out of school at
age 16 in her second year of secondary school, told Human Rights Watch, “I
really want to go back to school so that I can get a job and live a better life.
But I’m very busy with housework and my mother-in-law doesn’t support my going
back to school.”
Human Rights Watch found that child marriage exposes girls to gender-based
violence, including domestic and sexual violence. Some girls who rejected
forced marriages said they were threatened, verbally abused, or thrown out of
their homes by their families. Others said they were verbally abused or
physically assaulted by their husbands and in-laws. Still others said their
husbands abandoned them and left them to care for children without any
financial support, increasing the likelihood of their being impoverished. Few
girls in Malawi know they have the right to seek help and protection from
violence.
Health workers described to Human Rights Watch the reproductive health harms
and risks of early pregnancy when girls marry young, including maternal death,
obstetric fistula, premature delivery, and anaemia. Malawi’s maternal mortality
rate is high at 675 deaths per 100,000 live births. Health workers also talked about
the avoidable costs of early pregnancy to the healthcare system.
The government’s failure to mitigate the far-reaching harms of child marriage
could have negative implications for Malawi’s future development. Human Rights
Watch called on the Malawi government to take immediate and long-term measures
to protect girls from child, early, and forced marriage and ensure the
fulfillment of their human rights in accordance with its international human
rights obligations. The Malawi government, with the support of its development
partners, should:
“Malawi faces many economic challenges, but the rights of the country’s
girls and women should not be sacrificed as a result,” Odhiambo said. “Those
reforms that cannot be carried out immediately should still be part of a
longer-term policy.”