South Africa – Girl 13 Bartered into Marriage – No Justice Protection
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: March 25, 2013
WUNRN
Also Via SVRI – Sexual Violence
Research Initiative
SOUTH AFRICA – GIRL AGE 13 BARTERED
INTO MARRIAGE TO OLDER TRADITIONAL HEALER & NOT PROTECTED BY JUSTICE
This is the story of a thirteen-year-old girl who should be at school, but
instead is a ‘housewife’, after being sold off as a child bride to a sangoma
(traditional healer). Child marriage plagues
Africa
unprotected in a staggering number of cases. Most notably, this one.
By MANDY DE
01 February 2013
From
13-year-old who has been married off to a 57-year-old traditional healer,
ostensibly to pay the sangoma’s bill. Frank Maponya, Sowetan’s bureau chief for
the province, broke the story. He writes that the child is barely a teen, but
has already been forced into a union with a man 44 years her senior.
The child was in Grade Six before she became a child bride. She was
described by the principal of her school (
who was doing well in class”. Now, instead of being a learner, the child is a
‘housewife’.
The child and the sangoma crossed each other’s paths a couple of years ago
when the young girl got epilepsy. The girl’s mother, who cannot be named so as
to protect the minor, said the girl would “faint at any time”. There was
ongoing treatment for this epilepsy, and later for an “ancestral problem” – and
the sangoma’s bills started piling up.
The mother didn’t have the funds to pay the sangoma, so the traditional
healer offered to marry the girl. His reasoning was that this young girl could
live close to him and he could attend to her ailments. Further, he said that
the arrangement would settle the score of the bill. As a sweetener, the sangoma
offered R5,000 ilibolo (lobola) which was subsequently given to the girl’s
parent, a single mother of five children.
After hearing about the transaction and the fate of the child, police
arrested the man. Mahwelereng police spokesman Captain Sebotsaro Motadi told
Sowetan that the sangoma was due to face charges in court on Thursday 24
January 2013, but added that had been let go because the girl’s parent had
consented to the marriage.
The sangoma confirmed to Sowetan that he had been let off the hook, saying:
“There was no use of force in the marriage. It was a mutual agreement between
both families.” He added that his culture allowed him to marry anyone over the
age of 12. Needless to say, when the courts released the sangoma, he went home
to his child bride.
Daily Maverick spoke to Mthunzi Mhaga, ministerial spokesperson for the
Department of Justice, who nonetheless said he would prefer not to comment in
any details as the matter was being investigated by the National Prosecuting
Authority. “I am distressed to hear that the courts let the man go. If it is
established that the man had sex with the girl, he would most certainly be
facing a case of statutory rape,” Mhaga said.
A spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority said they wouldn’t
comment because they were currently investigating the case, but added that
they’d release a statement as soon as the investigation was done.
“For a man to treat a 10- or 11-year-old for a serious medical condition,
and then two years later manipulate the parents into allowing his marriage to
the child, is an indictment against South Africa and the NPA whose courts
allowed the man to walk free,” said Dianne Kohler Barnard, Shadow Minister of
Police for the DA. “First there is the issue of statutory rape, which falls
under the Sexual Offences Act in that the child was under the age of 16. This
terrifying situation wasn’t technically ‘ukuthwala’ as he didn’t kidnap the
child, but, as a man old enough to be her grandfather, [he] convinced the
parents to give her up willingly,” she said.
“Section 12 of the Children’s Act stipulates that a child below the minimum
age set by law for a valid marriage may not be given out in marriage or
engagement; and (b) above that minimum age may not be given out in marriage or
engagement without his or her consent. So this also falls foul of the
Children’s Act. Kidnapping, and the role the parents played in this dreadful
situation, should also be considered. The Trafficking Act still sits for
consideration with the NCOP, although it has been approved by the National
Assembly”.
“It is now up to the NPA to explain how a South African Court allowed
parental consent to overrule the laws of the land, and what steps will be taken
to deal with this matter and those responsible for taking this decision in
court. Our children and their protection should be one of our prime focuses,
yet time and again it seems the value of their health, happiness and well-being
evaporates like mist in the sun when other ‘more pressing’ issues face the
current government,” Kohler Barnard said.
Data from Unicef shows that a third of women between the ages of 20 to 24
were married as children, but that this problem is most prevalent in
Asia
Africa
1% of girls married before the age of fifteen, and 6% before the age of
eighteen.
Girls Not Brides, the global partnership to end child marriage, says the
outlook for girls who marry as children is painfully bleak. “Neither physically
nor emotionally ready to become wives and mothers, these girls are at far
greater risk of experiencing dangerous complications in pregnancy and
childbirth, becoming infected with HIV/Aids and suffering domestic violence.
With little access to education and economic opportunities, they and their
families are more likely to live in poverty,” reads the Girls Not Brides statement.
Child brides, like the young girl in
mostly forced to drop out of school, and a lack of education traps them in a
cycle of poverty because they are denied the same economic opportunities as
their peers. Research by Girls Not Brides shows that for each year that a girl
child stays in school, her opportunity for being healthier and wealthier (in
relative terms) increases.
The justice system has already failed this 13-year-old girl once, as it has
many other girls before her. One can only shudder at the thought of how many
fates like hers are out there, unreported, untouched.
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