Forced marriage
on Mischa in Cameroon (Cameroon), 10/Mar/2010 08:44, 34 days ago
We had a landmark meeting in one of my primary schools where we brought fathers, mothers, children and teachers together to discuss problems children are facing at school and parents’ concerns about education. We’re hoping this sort of community dialogue can help bring issues out into the open and let people try and come up with their own solutions. There was one bad moment when a village elder had a temper tantrum and almost walked out after one of the kids pointed out that it was a bit hypocritical for parents to forbid their children to drink and take drugs when the adults in the village were doing just that (I didn’t have a clue what they were all yelling about had to smile calmly and make soothing noises until someone translated).The most interesting issue that came up was the forced marriage of young girls: it was astonishing how many different and reasonable opinions were brought up. This is not a hypothetical problem here: one girl in her last year of primary school stood up and explained that she is concerned about one of her classmates. The girl’s father had arranged a marriage for her with a much older man she didn’t want to marry. The girl ran away over two weeks ago. She hasn’t been seen since and no-one is looking for her.A young boy said that the big problem for girls is that their fathers negotiate their marriages and take and spend the dowry before informing their daughters of the engagement. Even if the girl is unhappy with the match, if the father has already spent her dowry the husband’s family are allowed to come and kidnap the girl from her home.One mother pointed out that for her a negative HIV test for the husband was more important than any dowry. There are chilling stories here about men who are HIV positive who are pressured by their families to have children before they die. The man will infect his young wife and child, and then die. The wife and child will often die soon after.A father pointed out that in the twenty five year history of the primary school no girl has gone on to reach the fourth year of the lycee without getting into some sort of problem with boys, often pregnancy, and this is why parents are now too concerned to send their daughters there. The fathers said they often want to marry off their daughters early because they are worried that if they don’t the girls will become pregnant or contract sexually transmitted disease.A girl (who hopes to go to the lycee next year) said that girls often get together and have sex with boys at the lycee for money or gifts because their parents give them no money for food, books, uniforms, and pens and expect them to work at home and in the fields as well as study all day.In theory forced marriage seems like a very black and white issue, but actually it is very easy to sympathise with the men who arrange the marriages. Often the fathers who force their daughters into marriage are not doing it because they are greedy for a dowry or because they want to suppress and control them. They are fathers who care about their daughters, and don’t want them to be rejected by society because they are pregnant or have a sexually transmitted disease. Our challenge is to convince them that it is education, rather than an early forced marriage, that will best help their daughters.