Chad – Community Radio on Widespread Custom of Child Marriage

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http://www.internews.org/prs/2008/20081110_chad.shtm

Chad –
Community Radio Outreach Addresses Widespread Custom of Child
Marriage

(November 10, 2008) Nearly half of all Central African women marry before
they are 19, according to UNICEF. Despite public campaigns against child
marriage, parents often force their daughters to marry young, supposedly to
protect them from sexual harassment and out-of-wedlock pregnancies, as well as
to relieve the financial burden of providing for their daughters.

But radio listeners in Chad recently heard another perspective. An in-depth
radio program tackled the sensitive issue of child marriages, also known as
“thunderbolt marriages.” The program explored risks such as health problems for
girls physically unready for pregnancy and a high rate of marital unhappiness
and divorce.

The program included an interview with a young woman identified as Madame
Dina, who was married at 14. “At fourteen, you’re still a young child,” she
said. “I stole my childhood.”

Produced by journalist Frédéric Doumdigao Komba during a weeklong training
on issues-based journalism by Internews this summer, the program aired on Radio
La Voix de l’Espérance (Voice of Hope Radio) in N’Djaména, the capital of Chad.
(Listen
to the program, in French)

An interviewee identified as Madame Naïma said her father forced her to
marry at 13. “I am not the only girl to marry so early; almost all my big
sisters down to the little sisters have done so,” she said.

Poverty and poor schooling rates, especially for girls, are the main causes
of early, voluntary marriages, according to a mother of four children who was
interviewed on the program. A father advised listeners that parents should pay
more attention to their children’s education, to better protect them against
the consequences of an early and failed marriage.

A gynecologist and obstetrician testified that child marriages sometimes
result in permanent health consequences for women. Teenager’s bodies are not
always prepared for pregnancies, which often kill young wives, he said on the
program.

A representative from the Women Lawyer Association told listeners that
according to Chadian law, the minimum age for marriage was set in 1958 as 15
for girls and 18 for boys. The legal age should now be raised, not only for the
sake of young women, but also their future children, she said, arguing that it
would also help protect many teenage wives from sexual abuse.

Due to the low education level in Chad and lack of access to the Internet,
the professional skills capacity of journalists is very low; many do not know
how to write well in French or use a computer. The radio program on child
marriage was produced under Internews’ community radio project in Chad, which
launched in September 2007 to improve the quality of radio journalism by
training and mentoring reporters at community radio stations.

Internews’ work in Chad is made possible by grants from the US State
Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, USAID’s Office of
Transition Initiatives and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.