HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) – In Zimbabwe, where 10-year-old girls are forced to marry due to poverty or traditional and religious practices, a teenage taekwondo enthusiast is using sport to give girls in an impoverished community a chance to fight in life.
“Few people do taekwondo here, so it’s fascinating for girls, both married and single. I use it to get their attention, ”said Natsiraishe Maritsa, 17, a martial arts fan since she was 5 who is now using taekwondo to bring girls and mothers together to fight and fight child marriage.
Children as young as four and some of Natsiraishe’s former schoolmates who are now married line up in the tiny, dusty backyard outside their parents’ house in the poor Epworth settlement, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) away ) southeast of the capital, Harare.
They enthusiastically follow your instructions to stretch, kick, strike, punch and train. After class, they talk about the dangers of child marriage. Holding their babies, the newly married girls took the lead.
One after another, they narrated how their marriages turned into slavery, including verbal and physical abuse, marital rape, pregnancy-related health complications and hunger.
“We are not ready for this thing called marriage. We are too young for that, ”Maritsa told the Associated Press after the session, which she said was“ a safe space ”for girls to share ideas.
“The role of teenage mothers is often overlooked when people campaign against child marriage. Here, I use their voices, their challenges, to discourage young women who are not yet married from avoiding early sexual activity and marriage, ”said Maritsa.
Neither boys nor girls can legally marry until the age of 18, according to Zimbabwe law enacted after the Constitutional Court in 2016 overturned previous legislation that allowed girls to marry at 16.
However, the practice remains widespread in the struggling country in southern Africa, where about 30% of girls are married before they turn 18, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund. Child marriage is prevalent across Africa, and rising poverty amid the COVID-19 pandemic has increased pressures on families to marry his daughters.
For some poor families in Zimbabwe, marrying a young daughter means less of a burden, and the bride price paid by her husband is often “used by families as a means of survival”, according to Girls Not Brides, an organization that campaigns by the end child marriages.
Some religious sects encourage 10-year-old girls to marry much older men for “spiritual guidance,” while some families, to avoid “shame,” force girls who have premarital sex to marry their boyfriends, according to the organization.
Maritsa, through her association called Vulnerable Underaged People’s Auditorium, hopes to increase the confidence of married and single girls through the martial arts classes and discussions that follow.
The ban on public meetings in Zimbabwe, imposed as part of strict blocking measures last week, to try to delay an unprecedented increase in new COVID-19 infections, forced Maritsa to suspend sessions, but she hopes to resume as soon as the blockade is suspended.
“From desperation, young mothers feel empowered … being able to use their stories to dissuade other girls from falling into the same trap,” said Maritsa, who said she started the project in 2018 after seeing her friends leave school to get married .
Some, like her best friend, Pruzmay Mandaza, 21, now plan to return to school, although her husband forced her to resign as vice president of the association and prevent her from participating in taekwondo training.
Inside the well-decorated little house adorned with Maritsa’s medals and photos, her parents prepare fruit juice and some cookies for the girls – her sacrifice to help her daughter’s efforts.
“I can only take 15 people per session because the only support I get is from my parents,” said Maritsa. “My father is a small-scale farmer, my mother is a full-time housewife, but they sacrifice what little they have for what I want to achieve,” she said. “He’s my running partner,” she added, referring to her father.
Taekwondo is not very popular in Zimbabwe, a football fanatic, but there are groups of professional and backyard training schools.
Despite her limited resources, Maritsa is committed to her mission.
Early marriages may be on the rise as COVID-19 keeps children away from school and increases poverty, groups of women warn.
Even some of the participants in Maritsa’s home sessions seem to have different priorities.
“We need to know how to keep our husbands happy, that’s what matters,” said Privilege Chimombe, a 17-year-old mother of two who had her first child at 13 and was abandoned by her husband after a recent session.
“These are the perceptions that we have to fight for,” replied Maritsa. “It is difficult, but it has to be done.”