CHIKUTU, MALAWI. Mapendo Simbeye's problems began early last year when the barren hills along Malawi's northern border with Tanzania rejected his attempts to grow even cassava, the hardiest crop of all. So to feed his wife and five children, he said, he went to his neighbor, Anderson Kalabo, and asked for a loan. Kalabo gave him 2,000 kwacha - about $16. The family was fed. But that created another problem: How could Simbeye, a penniless farmer, repay Kalabo?
The answer would positively shock most of you, but there, it is a custom. Simbeye sent his 11-years-old daughter to Kalabo's hut. There she became a servant for his first-wife and of course, Kalabo's new bed partner.
Now 12, Mwaka-Simbeye's daughter's name- said that she never knew that she meant to be Kalabo's second wife, a man who roughly three decades older than her. "I didn't know anything about marriage" she said. Mwaka ran away, and her parents took her back after six months. But a week's journey through Malawi's dry and mountainous north suggests her escape is the exception. In remote lands like this - where boys are valued far more than girls, older men prize young wives, fathers covet dowries and mothers are powerless to intervene - many African girls like Mwaka must leap straight from childhood to marriage at a word from their fathers, sometimes years before they reach puberty.
The consequences they face are: schooling cut, early pregnancies and hazardous births and in years exposure to HIV-AIDS. Studies show that the average of marriage age in Malawi remains among the world's lowest, and the percentage of adolescent mothers the world's highest.
There is a lot of talk, but the value of the girl child is still low," said Seodi White, Malawi's coordinator for the Women in Law in Southern Africa Research Trust. "Society still clings to the education of the boy, and sees the girl as a trading tool. In the north, girls as early as 10 are being traded off for the family to gain. After that, the women become owned and powerless in their husbands' villages."
Many choose misery over divorce because custom decrees that children in patriarchal tribes belong to the father. Uness Nyambi said she was betrothed as a child so her parents could finance her brother's choice of a bride. Now about 17, she has two children and a husband who guesses he is 70. "Just because of these two children, I cannot leave him," she said.
Beatrice Kitamula, 19, was forced to marry her wealthy neighbor, now 63, five years ago because her father owed another man a cow. "I was the sacrifice," she said.
Malawi government officials say they try hard to protect these girls. Legislation before Parliament would raise the minimum age for marriage to 18, the worldwide norm. Marriages of Malawian girls from 15 to 18 are now legal with the parents' consent. Women's rights advocates say they welcome the proposal, even though its effect would be limited because many marriages here, like much of the sub-Saharan region, take place under traditional customs, not civil law.
The government trained about 230 volunteers last year in ways to protect children, especially girls. Volunteers for Malawi's Human Rights Commission, Roman Catholic Church workers and police victim-protection units also try to intervene.
In Iponga, for example, Mbohesha Mbisa averted a forced marriage to her uncle at age 13 last year by walking to the local police station, where officers persuaded her father to drop his plans.
Still, Malawi officials say this region's growing poverty, worsened by AIDS and a recent crop-killing drought, has put even more young girls at risk of forced marriage. Their households can no longer pay for their daily needs.
Mwaka Simbeye has her fellow villagers in Chikutu to thank for her return to her parents' home after her sojourn in her neighbor's hut. Her father, Mapendo Simbeye, who repaid his $16 with Mwaka, said he took her back after hearing that the local police could arrest him. He said he underestimated her, adding, "My daughter is worth more than 2,000 kwacha." "I did it out of ignorance," he said. "I had five kids, no money and no food. Then Kalabo wanted the money back so I thought of selling the daughter. I didn't know I was abusing her."
What a tragic world... I can't say a word, I think you could conclude by yourself...
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