Advocacy and Education: Promoting and protecting girls' rights in East Africa
Between 42-60% of girls in Africa will be married before the age of 18,
creating far-reaching negative consequences for the welfare and rights of women
(UNFPA:
Ending Child Marriage, A guide for global policy action - PDF).
DFID believes that gender equality
is at the heart of development
(PDF), and is critical to achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals. Through an
organization called
MIFUMI, we funded an international project to help protect
girls and young women in Uganda,
Kenya,
Tanzania and
South Africa, from abuse
through advocacy, rights promotion, and education.
Since 2005, this project has reached almost 15,000 young people with direct advocacy support and life skills training, engaging more than 160 local leaders and almost 7000 community representatives. It has helped push through reviews of family law in Uganda and Tanzania on child marriage and bride price issues respectively. Legal assistance is provided to women and girls, and more than 500 news features have been published in local, national and international media to raise awareness and change behaviour.
The price of forced marriage
Families in Africa that are hard hit by poverty and other disasters often resort to marrying off their daughters early to benefit from the price paid by prospective husbands. This is sometimes referred to as the 'bride price'.
Early marriage is a rights abuse which often leaves girls and women vulnerable to further abuses.
For example, women who are in abusive relationships are frequently trapped as
a result of the exorbitant bride price that her parents either cannot afford to,
or do not want to, refund to the husband. In addition, early marriage worsens
health outcomes for these girls, particularly during pregnancy and childbirth.
Ugandan MP Beatrice Lagada comments: “In my area of north-eastern Uganda, women are suffering a lot as a result of dowry refund, one needs to pay many cows before taking someone’s daughter.
"And however much the husband punishes you, the father cannot allow you to come back because the animals are gone.”
The MIFUMI project aims to help prevent or mitigate this sort of situation.
Maria's story
Maria is 13, from Tororo, Eastern Uganda. During her second term holidays, Maria* was married off by her family to Musoke*, a local man, and started living with him as his ‘wife’. She shortly became pregnant.
The MIFUMI project learnt of this case from the head teacher of a neighbouring local school, and the police were alerted. MIFUMI then lobbied successfully to have the case elevated to a higher police authority following suspected conflict of interest.
Maria is now back with her parents and is back at school while the authorities pursue Musoke for support for Maria's education, and for the baby. But without intervention from MIFUMI, it was unlikely that Maria or her parents would have been helped to pursue justice.
And, because of this case, changes were made in the district Police station in Tororo. The district Police Commander in Tororo responded:
“Thanks to you MIFUMI, I now understand more about these cases. We will arrest duty-bearers at sub-county level who help parents forge birth certificates of girls to understate or overstate their age in order to escape justice or extort”.
More about MIFUMI
Discrimination and violence against women is a problem that threatens the ability of a country to reduce poverty.
For example, around half of all Kenyan women have been victims of violence. And in Tanzania, the law allows girls as young as 15 to get married with parental consent and between 20% and 40% do so before reaching adulthood, according to the UNFPA.
MIFUMI aims, helped by our Civil Society Challenge Fund to promote the rights of girls (11-17 years), and to help families tackle bride price disputes through the following channels and methods:
- Delivering life skills-based education for girls together with boys through civil clubs, children congresses and radio advocacy programmes to help them learn about relationship risks and how to minimise them.
- Legal assistance to women and girls in seeking redress through the criminal justice system.
- Lobbying constitutional courts on discriminatory laws and customs such as the payment or repayment of bride price before marriage can be validated/nullified.
- Policy advocacy has been undertaken at the local and national level for the enactment or reform of legislation on bride price in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa. Campaigns involved radio, television and public protests.
The project is helping bring about change in the way African societies values the practice of bride price. It is trying to promote the practice more as a token gift in order to reduce its contribution to rights violations, including child marriages and domestic violence.
Key facts
- MIFUMI's Voices for a Future project operates in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa
- The project also involves the Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW) in Kenya, the Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA) and the Western Cape Network on Violence Against Women (WCNVAW)-South Africa
MIFUMI- Uganda- The project duration is April 2005-Mar 2009, with DFID funding of 345,600, from our Civil Society Challenge Fund
