- Good morning everyone.
I come from Malawi, a country now well known
with a historical past of amending it's Constitution
and raising the legal marriage age from 15 to 18.
Child marriage has been a crisis for African countries
and other developing countries for a very long time
and girl children have been raised and actually as brides.
And this situation has been normalized in our communities.
We do not question such type of culture and traditions.
As young girls, as we were growing up
we saw marriage as the only hope
for a secured future just because we have been raised
as brides and not as agents of change.
We never really questioned all these culture
the values, the norms and how such culture
affected our daily lives, not until recently.
Even though this has been the case
we were able to see the physical and psychological
harm child marriage has on the girl
on the lives of girl children.
When I look at child marriage
people will often quote it as child marriage
but on my personal perspective, it is child abuse.
I have personally witnessed in my own family
my own family members, being married off
my classmates being married off as well
as young as the age of 10, 11.
And on my personal story, my own sister
was married off at the age of 11.
And this was a wake up call for me
to look at a life in a very different way.
Traditions and norms and values and social actions
are what fuel child marriage cases
in an African context, including across the globe.
As I have already highlighted
we have extreme cases where 10 year olds
can be married off and it's really traumatizing
to feel, to be, in the shoes
of these little girls as young as 10.
I want us to imagine the time we were 10 years old
and see and actually just look at your daughters.
If you have a daughter at the age of 11
what has her life been?
It's really traumatizing.
And the extreme is that they go at the initiation camps
at puberty stage and then at the initiation camps
they learn different traditions.
I know, I love traditions, they're beautiful.
The diversity in traditions is what makes us what we are
but the negative traditions that the girls
have to go through cannot be tolerated.
In my country, girls as young as 10
they are supposed to go to the initiation camps
and it is at these initiation camps
where at the age of 9, they learn more about motherhood
and they also learn sexual satisfaction of a man.
So imagine this little girl being taught
all those philosophies about life
but life is more than satisfying a man sexually.
And they have to go through a cleansing ritual
where a man who is hired by the community
goes to these initiation camps and sleeps with a girl
in a tradition called sexual cleansing
like making them, it's more of like transferring
them from being young and then going into an adult stage.
And this is a tradition that does not only happen
in Malawi, it also happens in other African countries.
And think of the trauma that they go through
because this sexual cleansing
they call it sexual cleansing
but it actual sense, it is rape.
And imagine each and every girl
who goes to the camp has to go through this.
And they're strongly warned not to speak about it
as you know what they say
what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Many girls suffer in silence.
This is what, on a personal note, make me angry
and I asked myself a lot of questions.
Why should girls suffer in silence?
Why should her life be decided
on her behalf by someone else?
Why can't girls and women across the globe speak out?
And when we look at the, we were talking about democracy
how can we talk about democracy
when more than half of the population
does not participate about social
economics, or political issues?
Why should girls and women be left behind?
Changing tradition practices is a hard thing.
It wasn't easy to stand boldly in front
of the traditional leaders to change
about the traditions I have spoken about.
And mind you, we were just a bunch of little girls
standing in front of the traditional leaders
and traditionally in an African aspect
girls are not raised as leaders
hence we are more of like recipients
and when we were there standing up in front
of traditional leaders
they looked at us and they undermined us.
But we became vocal because I believe
in working together with a collective voice.
We were able to challenge how and convince
the traditional leaders to change some
of the traditional practices, especially
the sexual cleansing ritual and other social attitudes
of devaluing girl children and raising girls as brides.
And when our traditional leaders agreed
to change some of the traditional practices
I became more and more confident and motivated
that change is possible and I started to believe
that this is the moment where young people
can actually speak about the challenges
that they face every day.
And this was the moment I became bold for change
even though I was such a little, tiny girl.
And I believe that this is the generation
that will raise powerful weapons
for a social inclusive society because I believe
that no woman from our generation
will raise her child as a bride.
And I believe that young girls will be able
to unleash their potential and become productive
and valued citizens in my country
and across the world all together.
In Malawi as I have already highlighted
the legal marriage age was 15.
We thought that the law has to change
and this was very hard because we were just young people
and then talking about rules
and policies, and things like that.
But then we were able to advocate our voice
as young people and I personally
I became unstoppable and that's why I said
sometimes people refer to me as fireball
because my voice, I believe that my voice was
able to change the things that were happening in my country.
And we were able to fight for the legal marriage age
raised from 15 to 18.
Right now, in the Constitution
18 is the legal marriage age.
We advocated also for the Constitutional amendment.
We lined up several activities and our activities were
mainly supported by local and international partners.
I played a very huge role in all these campaigns
and at national level, I was the youth president
and this was a very active role for me
to learn back and forth and meet different people
to make sure that we hold our adjudicators accountable.
And through our campaign
we lobbied different stakeholders.
We came up with different forums to share
and engage, to support us including the support
of so many people and some of them, they are in this room.
And we we organized a big walk to the capital.
It was a very interesting activity
and we had all these young people ride up
and we were heading to the capital
so that we speak about the need
that as young people, we need our voice
need to be heard everywhere and everything
that concerns us needs to be taken in to accountable.
And we also had a National Youth Conference
and it is at this National Youth Conference
we were able to gather different voices of young people
because I believe that everyone
when it comes to democracy, everyone has to participate
including the victims themselves.
They need to speak out and this is why we had
the youth conference, so that the youth voice
becomes the strong force for this change.
And we launched a one million signature where parents
were actually pledging that would not
marry off our daughters before the age of 18
or before they complete their education.
And we met the First Lady of the country
who is also our goodwill ambassador
for this work to end child marriages.
And to increase our popularity
we also involved the traditional leaders
because these traditional leaders are the local custodians.
If we leave them behind, then when it comes to traditions
things will not change and they were a part of our campaign.
And we actually involved them to write
a letter to the president of Malawi
to make sure that the amendment bill has to be signed.
And this actually when I am speaking
it sounds so easy, but then it wasn't an easy path.
We really made so many challenges
because when we were speaking to the members
of Parliament, at first they were fine
but like, oh, a 15 year old girl, she's all grown up.
"You know how you women age, by the time you are 25
you're already aged, so it's actually better
for you girls to get married before you age out."
Even though we received such kind of feedback
we never allowed anyone to pull us down.
And through our campaign, it took actually
more than five years to make this work.
So I believe, as advocates, we don't have to look
at time and say maybe I have to stop doing this.
We have to continue doing our work
even though some of these things will take a long time.
When we actually passed the constitutional amendment bill
to our surprise last year
I remember it was the 14th of February.
It was actually our Valentine's gift.
This was the day the members of Parliament
gathered and passed the amendment in the Constitution.
And then in the act itself, they removed all
the contradictory definitions of who is a child.
And automatically, through the amendment
of the Constitution, it of course raised
the legal marriage age and other issues
it cross cut issues of trafficking
they were all included.
And actually changing a constitution is a huge change
for us because this is the greatest stunt of all time.
I was blown away by how quickly our government
responded through our constitutional amendment process.
I am so proud that I worked on this
and we had a very big team and I am so proud
to be a part of the team that has brought
all these changes in my country.
Since then, women and girls in 16 other countries
like Guatemala and Tanzania have followed
the same path and have passed ban on child marriages
by raising the legal marriage age.
And this began in Malawi.
We have learned, on a personal level, I have learned
that by working together, we can actually amplify
voices and change the laws in our countries.
And this year Malawi is planning to hold
a side event on ending child marriage
at the UN Commission on the status of women
just because we have worked on this
and it has given a platform to explore
how other countries can work together
to end child marriage, globally.
And now, we are building a new foundation
a foundation for girls leadership.
It is our goal to promote girls' education
and to empower them and to stand up
for their rights in Malawi.
And this movement is rising up and is going across
and I believe that through this movement
girls' voices will be heard everywhere around the world.
And I believe that a lot has been done
and as I am standing here, I am so proud
of the many successful turnout of our campaigns
and our tireless activism work and everything.
And it's so great that now the change
that we have brought in
people have to understand globally
that it is illegal to marry off our young children.
These are the future generation
and we need to embrace them.
Thank you very much.
And I believe that everyone in this room
has a role to take and you are the voices of girls
and the lost voices of so many women across the world.
Thank you.