By Leah H. Mwainyekule
SEVENTEEN year old Hawa Yuba had only one option when she completed primary school – to
get married. No, it wasn’t out of love; in fact she hardly even knew her future husband.
She did it because it was the only way out of her problems. It was either get married or starve. She had no idea that her guardian angel was
about to save her.
Hawa had
been living with her mother and five siblings, and she completed standard eight
in 2010. With the difficult condition in
which her family was living, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to join
secondary school, even though she was selected for form one. One day, a man
from the village came to propose marriage, and, feeling devoid of options, she
agreed to be his wife.
The
would-have-been student got married to a man she hardly knew immediately after
completing her primary education, and lived with him as his loyal wife for a
whole month before he left the village and went to Blantyre.
“I don’t
even know how old the guy was. Actually,
I never asked him although we were married,” explains Hawa.
Hawa’s
mother, Sifati Solomon, felt bad that she had agreed to her daughter’s marriage
but did not know where to obtain help.
Her friends and neighbors advised her to visit Namwera AIDS Coordinating
Committee (NACC) so that her daughter could receive educational assistance
through the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Child Protection Support
Project. NACC was able to provide the
support Hawa needed to go back to school.
“My husband
called one day to ask how I was doing, and that’s when I broke the news to him
that I was going to school, and he should feel free to marry any other woman,”
says Hawa. “He didn’t argue. He said that he respected my decision, and so
we got a divorce.”
Hawa says
that she wasn’t happy with the married life because she wanted to obtain an
education. Her marriage happened because
of her difficult financial situation.
Luckily, after her decision to get a divorce the village council met
with parents from both sides, and agreed to dissolve the marriage. Even the husband didn’t demand anything,
saying that his wife had also played her part by helping with chores at his
parents’ house.
Hawa is now
in form one at the Majuni Secondary School in Kamwendu village (Mangochi
District) in the Southern region of Malawi, and she wants to be a nurse one
day. “I really admire the way they wear
their white dresses and walk along the corridors giving pills to the
patients. They look lovely and I want to
be doing that one day,” she explains, adding:
“I don’t want to get married again; maybe I might think about it after
being a nurse.”
Hawa’s
mother admits that she made a huge mistake by agreeing to the marriage. She felt so distraught about it, that when
she went to NACC’s offices she asked them to escort her to the police station
so that she could turn herself in for getting involved in a forced marriage.
NACC
officials took her to the Victims’ Support Unit, a government office that helps
in addressing gender based violence and promoting women’s rights. The quality improvement team did an
assessment and realized that Hawa getting married wasn’t a deliberate move by
her mother, who wanted the best for Hawa.
Sifati had thought that marriage would offer her daughter an opportunity
for a better life. The officials understood
the Sifati’s plight and asked her to promise that she will encourage her
daughter to study hard, and concentrate in her studies.
“I am
thankful that NACC helped save my daughter, and now my heart is at peace,” says
the mother of six. Her first born is a
school dropout, Hawa is her second born, and the other four are studying in
primary school. They all depend on her
tomato business, since her first husband with whom she had four children had
passed away, and her second husband with whom she has two children separated
from her and is not helping them.
Being
seventeen years old can be very confusing.
One moment you think that you’re on top of the world, while you actually
might be drowning. In the case of Hawa,
she got married in one month, divorced the next, and back to school
afterwards. Poverty almost robbed Hawa
of her dreams and future. Hawa is
thankful for the opportunity to study and strongly believes that her guardian
angel has always been with her every step of the way.
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(Leah visited Malawi in December 2010, under a program implemented by Pact Malawi)
