Food shortages force children to marry in Mozambique

In Sub-Saharan Africa, one in four girls are married before they reach 18. Although the statistics show the percentage of girls marrying before they reach 18 is decreasing when emergencies strike it is still a common coping mechanism. 

“My aunt urged me to marry a man who could take care of me,” Inês, 14. 

For Inês, 14, the nightmare of child marriage started when the impact of El-Nino's drought spread to her village in southern Mozambique, killing her family's crops. Her mother, Alzira Mandlazi, had lost her husband five years earlier and was on the verge of desperation as she struggled to feed her three children: Inês, 14, Cecília, 5 and Laura, 8. 

Inês was hungry when a man knocked on their door asking to marry her. She saw marriage as a "way out" of the life of hunger and hardship she was facing. “My aunt urged me to marry a man who could take care of me,” she explains. For a measly amount of $40 (USD), the family agreed to release Inês to be married. 

“I did not want to marry. I wanted to study,” Inês, 14 

With few options, Inês accepted her family’s decision. She dropped out of school where she was studying in grade four and said goodbye to her dream of becoming a teacher. 

“I did not want to marry. I wanted to study,” she says. Instead of going to class, she went to live with her husband, who was 10 years older than her. Just a few months into their marriage, her husband began beating her. 

Inês was lucky. Not only was she able to escape her abusive husband, her family took her back. 

Unable to provide for her children's needs from her harvests or in their rural village, Inês's mother went to the capital city to find work. She sends what money she is able to earn but it is never enough to feed her children, who are currently in the care of a neighbour. 

The Facts:

More than 230 million women alive today were married before their 15th birthday. 

In sub-Saharan Africa, about 1 in 4 girls, like Ines, marry before 18.

Girls who marry are not only denied their right to a childhood, they are often, physically and emotionally abused, socially isolated and denied opportunities for education and future employment.

It takes a world to end violence against children. It takes a world to end child marriage.

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