Marriage is very, very important in South Sudan, you know women are really
defined by their ability to get married and have
children.
So it's a very very important institution for communities and has a huge social value.
But for younger women and girls when they're forced into marriage, it really can have very
negative impacts.
Child Marriage: South Sudan
I didn't go to school.
No one could pay my school fees. What was there to do if I had stayed at home?
The only thing left to do was get married.
South Sudan is considered to be one of the hot spots for child marriage globally. About
48% of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are married. They're not clear
statistics on how young but there's certainly evidence that we ourselves have collected
that some girls as young as 12
are getting married in South Sudan.
My uncle said my father didn't pay a proper dowry for my mother.
He said I was beautiful
and he would take me to the cattle camp
and find a man
with many cows to marry me.
I didn't
like his proposal. I said no, no,
I won't go.
Dowry is a very very significant
factor in child marriage in South Sudan
because it is paid by the husband's family to the girl's family.
In some of the pastoral communities it's usually paid in cattle, which have
great social, cultural, and economic significance.
The girl is the property of the family.
So when she's old enough and the man comes with the dowry,
the family gives him the girl and takes the dowry.
If the girl is
disobedient and refuses to marry him,
if she says, "I don't want to get married,"
then we'll say, "He has dowry, and you will marry him."
If she still refuses, we'll beat her and force her to get married,
so we can get the dowry.
Girls face violence at every step along the way, so girls who try
to resist marriage, girls who run away,
are assaulted
are brought back
are locked up.
One day my uncles ambushed me and beat me up.
They dragged me
to a hut where my uncle's cousin lives in Mading.
There they locked me up for 3 days.
They tied my hands and legs up
with electric cables.
Girls often face violence once they are married. Younger girls are much more vulnerable to domestic violence than older
girls.
He slapped me in the face to prevent me
from leaving and I fell down.
He slapped my face until I fell down.
That's when he removed an axe from under the mattress and kept slapping
me with it. He wanted to hit me on the head with the
axe but I blocked him with my arm.
That's when
the axe cut my arm.
I thought he just slapped my arm with the axe but later I realized he actually cut me.
I started crying out for my mother.
South Sudan has few shelters or safe spaces for girls fleeing forced marriage.
We don't have a lot of civil institutions that can accommodate
girls that ran out from their house because of early marriage.
They are vulnerable, you know. They don't have income, they don't have anything, they are
depending on their families so it will be difficult for them.
So the most important thing is for the government increase the level of awareness, and government provide more
and provide more children institutions who can accommodate those
girls
that ran out from because of early marriages.
South Sudanese women and girls face the highest maternal morality rate in the world.
The younger you are when you get pregnant, the more risks there are that
you might die in childbirth,
that you might have
serious long-term
health issues relating to early pregnancy and childbirth.
I had been in labor for four days. On the fifth day I was taken
to the hospital.
When I
was in labor the baby
wouldn't come out.
It almost killed me.
I didn't have the strength to push,
so they cut me
open to take my baby out.
That is Senior 3A, Senior 3B, Senior 3C.
We have the female students are
204.
And then,
the male students are 501.
Still you will find that the number
of boys are more than the number of girls.
In South Sudan, generally, people
don't tend to
put effort in girls
so that the girls can go for
studies,
because people have got these cultural beliefs.
They feel that a girl, there is no need to take a girl to school because
a girl
has to stay in the house and she has to get married.
And once she is married she will get cattle to the house, and get money.
The first step that we would like to see is we would like to see a very explicit ban on
marriages below the age of 18.
We need a law that is clear and unequivocal, that
any marriage that involves a child below the age of 18
should be declared unlawful.
We need training for the police. We need resources to be put aside to develop
shelters. We need to make sure that the health system is able to provide care and
support
to pregnant teenagers,
to girls who are trying to resist marriage, and
to young mothers.
So you know, you need a comprehensive strategy, you need money,
and you need political will. �