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Child marriage is a huge problem in many parts of the world and typically results in a loss of education for the girl in societies where educating girls is not valued. Malawi is an especially impoverished country. Girl's are crudely "initiated" into sex at a young age where they are taught to please men.
This woman is amazing. When she became senior chief, to over 900,000 people, and saw how horrible the situation was for girls, she immediately set about changing it. Even though Malawi has laws setting the minimum age for marriage at 18, it is seldom enforced due to the pressures of the prevailing traditional culture.
Theresa Kachindamoto, the terminator of child marriages
What she has done is a miracle for these girls:
This woman is amazing. When she became senior chief, to over 900,000 people, and saw how horrible the situation was for girls, she immediately set about changing it. Even though Malawi has laws setting the minimum age for marriage at 18, it is seldom enforced due to the pressures of the prevailing traditional culture.
Theresa Kachindamoto, the terminator of child marriages
Terminating early marriage
She was shocked when she saw girls as young as 12 with babies and teenaged husbands, and was soon ordering the people to give up their ways
"I told them: 'Whether you like it or not, I want these marriages to be terminated.'"
A 2012 United Nations survey found that more than half of Malawi's girls were married before the age of 18. It ranked Malawi 8th out of 20 countries thought to have the highest child-marriage rates in the world.
Last year, Malawi's parliament passed a law forbidding marriage before the age of 18. But under customary law of the traditional authorities, and the constitution, Malawian children can still marry with parental consent.
On the human development index, Malawi is considered as one of the world's poorest places, ranking 160th out of 182 nations. Early marriage is more common in rural areas, where parents are eager to get girls out of the house to ease their financial burden.
Emilida Misomali is part of a mothers group in the village of Chimoya, in Dedza district. They warn parents about the long-term ills of early marriage and childbirth, but say it falls on deaf ears.
"Most of them say 'It's better that she gets married. We can't afford to keep her ... she will make us poorer'," Misomali tells.
No matter the rationale, whether better health, education or wellbeing, Misolmali says "stubborn parents" won't stop giving away their children.
"We see a lot of complications, like cesarean births and girls cut as their bodies are too small to give birth."
Sexual initiation
In this area - outside Kachindamoto's jurisdiction - Misomali says that chiefs and police "can't intervene" as the community backlash is too strong.
The litany of sexually abusive traditions here include sending girls bound for marriage away to camps for "kusasa fumbi" - which means cleansing.
Reportedly at these sexual initiation camps , the girls are taught 'how to please men' by performing titillating dances and sex acts. Some "graduate" only by having sex with the teacher. Others return home untouched, only to be preyed on by a local "hyena" - men hired by parents to take their girls' virginity, or by prospective husbands to impregnate them.
In a country where one in 10 people is infected with HIV, these rites of passage - which rarely involve the use condoms - can sentence girls to a lifetime of trauma, and an early death.
According to Kachindamoto, who has banned these kinds of cleansing rituals, girls as young as seven are sometimes sent to these places.
"I said to the chiefs that this must stop, or I will dismiss them," Kahindamoto says
She was shocked when she saw girls as young as 12 with babies and teenaged husbands, and was soon ordering the people to give up their ways
"I told them: 'Whether you like it or not, I want these marriages to be terminated.'"
A 2012 United Nations survey found that more than half of Malawi's girls were married before the age of 18. It ranked Malawi 8th out of 20 countries thought to have the highest child-marriage rates in the world.
Last year, Malawi's parliament passed a law forbidding marriage before the age of 18. But under customary law of the traditional authorities, and the constitution, Malawian children can still marry with parental consent.
On the human development index, Malawi is considered as one of the world's poorest places, ranking 160th out of 182 nations. Early marriage is more common in rural areas, where parents are eager to get girls out of the house to ease their financial burden.
Emilida Misomali is part of a mothers group in the village of Chimoya, in Dedza district. They warn parents about the long-term ills of early marriage and childbirth, but say it falls on deaf ears.
"Most of them say 'It's better that she gets married. We can't afford to keep her ... she will make us poorer'," Misomali tells.
No matter the rationale, whether better health, education or wellbeing, Misolmali says "stubborn parents" won't stop giving away their children.
"We see a lot of complications, like cesarean births and girls cut as their bodies are too small to give birth."
Sexual initiation
In this area - outside Kachindamoto's jurisdiction - Misomali says that chiefs and police "can't intervene" as the community backlash is too strong.
The litany of sexually abusive traditions here include sending girls bound for marriage away to camps for "kusasa fumbi" - which means cleansing.
Reportedly at these sexual initiation camps , the girls are taught 'how to please men' by performing titillating dances and sex acts. Some "graduate" only by having sex with the teacher. Others return home untouched, only to be preyed on by a local "hyena" - men hired by parents to take their girls' virginity, or by prospective husbands to impregnate them.
In a country where one in 10 people is infected with HIV, these rites of passage - which rarely involve the use condoms - can sentence girls to a lifetime of trauma, and an early death.
According to Kachindamoto, who has banned these kinds of cleansing rituals, girls as young as seven are sometimes sent to these places.
"I said to the chiefs that this must stop, or I will dismiss them," Kahindamoto says
What she has done is a miracle for these girls:
- Over the past three years, Kachindamoto has broken up more than 850 marriages, and sent all of the children involved back to school.
- Kachindamoto says she often pays for, or finds other sponsors to pay for, the schooling of girls whose parents cannot afford to pay school fees.
- Through a network of "secret mothers and secret fathers" in the villages, Kachindamoto checks that parents aren't pulling girls out of school. She sends in outside allies to keep them there.
