Persistance Of Child Marriages In Zimbabwe: A Time To Treat The Cause And Not The Symptoms

The problem of child marriages is prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa and the UNICEF has estimated that more than 37 per cent of girls get married before reaching the age of 18 year, while more than11 per cent get married before the reaching the age of 15 years. Zimbabwe has enacted progressive legislation to address the dilemma of child marriages. However the problem of child marriages still persists and this paper shows that it is easy to change the law but not easy to change the society. This paper argues that legislative change is the first step to the right direction but a multi-pronged strategy is necessary to address child marriages. It is suggested that it is crucial to deal directly with the root causes of child marriages in addition to legislative change. The causes are, inter alia, poverty, peer pressure, teenage pregnancy and lack of education. One of the major causes is rooted in culture and religion such as the practice of kuzvarira and kuripa ngozi. Kuripa ngozi is practiced in order to appease the avenging spirit of a murdered person by compensating his family with a virgin bride and there is a general belief that failure to appease it might attract bad luck and even death for the entire family of the perpetrator. Over the years custom has influenced the attitude and behaviour of people. Therefore to change the law without changing the mind-set of the people through educational campaigns would be tantamount to dealing with the symptoms instead of the real problem.