Johannesburg - Twenty-year-old Loveness Mudzuru is taking on the Zimbabwean government to ensure that no other girls become child brides like she was.
Mudzuru got married to an older man when she was 16 years old and had two children by the time she was 17.
She and another child bride, Ruvimbo Tsopodzi, approached the Zimbabwean Constitutional Court earlier this year about the country’s Marriage Act, which they say is discriminatory as it sets the minimum age at 16 for girls and boys at 18.
The Customary Marriage Act sets no minimum age.
Mudzuru and Tsopodzi’s case is still to be heard in the Zimbabwean Constitutional Court.
Speaking at the Gender is My Agenda Campaign (GIMAC) pre-AU summit in Sandton on Tuesday on mainstreaming gender on the continent, Mudzuru said governments needed to do more to protect girls.
She said she would like to return to school so she could fight the issue better.
Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, the secretary-general of the World Young Women’s Christian Association and AU goodwill ambassador, said at least 39 000 girls got married every day.
“This is a total failure of our families to protect the rights of girls. It is unacceptable that girls escape poverty through getting married to older men. This is an abuse of culture and religion,” she said.
Africa has the second highest rate of child marriages after South Asia. Some of the countries with the highest rates of child brides are Mali, Central African Republic, Niger and Chad.
Gumbonzvanda said the campaigns on child brides were insufficient, unless girls were educated on their rights.
“The girls should not be treated as statistics. They need to be told about their rights. There should also be campaigns around men. If we say 15 million girls are married every year, that means there are 15 million men who are abusing girls. Males must take responsibility,” she said.
Malawian child bride Linda, 14, whose surname has been withheld to protect her identity, was able to get out of her marriage thanks to a human rights organisation.
Linda’s mother had fled her abusive husband, leaving her daughter behind. When the girl was 12, a 21-year-old man offered to take care of her if they got married. After the marriage, she fell pregnant.
“He became abusive and would beat me and not give me food. No one was able to help,” she said.
That is until a human rights organisation intervened and she was able to divorce her husband.
Linda now lives with her grandparents and survives by selling wood and fetching water for people.
Gumbonzvanda said organisations needed to have plans on how to help girls once they have been rescued from their marriages.
The event was attended by more than 50 organisations in Africa working on promoting gender equality.
Child bride hotspots
1. Niger
2. Central African Republic
3. Chad
4. Bangladesh
5. Guinea
6. Mozambique
7. Mali
8. Burkina Faso
9. Malawi