The problems of African
marriages
Mohamed
Osman Ibrahim
University
of Hargeisa, Somaliland
In
Africa, many girls do not attend school because their parents
are afraid they will meet people who might drive them from their
traditions.
Parents are are afraid that educated girls
will argue with them, and want more control over their lives.
Even worse, parents say they do not want their daughters to
marry until they are 19 or 20 years of age.
A young girl often does not have a say in
whether and whom she will marry. It is the parents, both the
man's and the girl's, who make the decision.
The girl is frequently subordinated to her
older partner in big family decisions, such as when to have
children and how many to have. Many of these girls, in villages
and towns throughout sub-Sahara Africa, are only about 12-years-
old. But such marriages are common, even though early unions
have been illegal for decades in a number of African countries.
The grandmothers who lead the wedding ceremonies repeat with
oppressive voices for many months: "You should obey him,
no matter what!" The girls are pulled from school and
forced to drop their education and become wives overnight. They
cannot refuse and they cannot turn to anyone for help. Girls who
rebel are regularly beaten by their husbands.
If
they go to their relatives, they are told it is their own fault.
And when a young girl goes to the police it is dismissed as "a
family problem".
Parents think to themselves: "We live in a period when girls
chase boys, have sex, produce babies, earn reputations, and
shame families. The communities will not respect them and people
will say we failed to fulfill our duties as parents."
They believe that if a girl does not marry at an early age, she
will sleep with many men, and nobody will want to marry her
later. Marriage is a way of keeping girls from sexual
adventures, they argue. It also strengthens clan relationships
and honours their
traditions, say African communities.
Last century our grandfathers picked wives who were as young as
eight. My grandmother told me she saw my granddad at her
father's house a lot when she was very young. He never brought
gifts for her, never joked with her, seemed to barely see her.
And no-one told her that he had picked her to be his bride.
A
friend in Geneva once said, as a joke: "Ticky, do you mean that
all our grandads were pedophiles?" The world "pedophile" does
not exist in any African language.
The
practice of forcing a girl into marriage took hold centuries ago
throughout sub-Sahara Africa, but it continues to be widespread,
especially in countries with large Muslim populations. The
marriage typically takes place within clans with polygamous
traditions.
The
girls are forced to wed distant relatives who are often three or
four times their age and who sometimes have chosen the
girl long before puberty..
When a teenage girl gets married in Africa, her husband's status
is seen as being just under God. Forced marriages have increased
in the last decade, when poverty and economic conditions got
worse - families often receive hundreds, even thousands of
dollars as marriage dowry.
Men
think virgins will reduce the chances of them bringing HIV/Aids
to the big polygamous family. Teenage marriages are also common
in conflict situations - girls have served as concubines in
military bases in Angola, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
Analysts on Islamic law say the Koran does teach that a girl can
be married as soon as she can conceive, but they say the
religion does not condone forcing girls into wedlock.
Medical professionals say pre-adolescence marriage is partly
responsible for Africa's maternal mortality rates, one of the
highest in the world.
It
is not unusual for both mother and child to die during the
birth. Early marriage is closely linked to early, repeated and
unplanned childbearing. Death rates are also higher for both
mothers and babies, as teenage bodies are not ready for rigours
of pregnancy
or
childbirth.
Data from 22 sub-Saharan African countries shows the highest
rates of teenage girls either married or cohabiting are in Mali
72 percent, Niger 57 percent, Uganda 47 percent, Burkina Faso 44
percent and Cameroon 41 percent. In 14 of the countries studied,
more than 25 percent of girls in this age group are married or
cohabiting. The data includes marriage, forms of cohabitation
and polygamy.
Nigerian girl sues over forced marriage
A
girl in Nigeria is taking her father to court for allegedly
forcing her to marry against her wish, according to a
Lagos-based newspaper. The Guardian newspaper says 19-year-old
Nafisatu Laushi is seeking a high court order in the central
city of Jos to stop her father from making her marry Danladi
Maigado.
The
girl - who is still attending secondary school - also wants the
court to restrain Maigado from parading himself as the would-be
husband, which she says infringes on her right to chose a
husband, the paper says.
Laushi is reported to have accused her father, Ahmadu, of
forcing her to marry a man she has never met or loved. She
told the court that she would suffer devastating
psychological pains if she was forced into a marriage which her
father had already
contracted, the Guardian reported.
Ahmadu Laushi is reported to have said that the marriage was to
cement the relationship between the two families. Forced
marriages are common in Nigeria, particularly in the
Islamic north, and some estimates say that 37 percent of girls
aged 15 to 19 are forced to wed. The treatment of women in
certain parts of Nigeria has come under fire from
international rights groups and numerous Western governments.