In Tanzania, Rebeca Gyumi fought to end `child marriages’, won, and then had to win again … and did!

November 15, 2019 by 7 Comments

Rebeca Gyumi

On October 23, 2019, Tanzania’s Court of Appeal ruled that child marriage is illegal … period. The Court ruled that the marriage age for both girls and boys must be [a] the same and [b] 18 years of age. In so ruling, the Court of Appeal upheld a similar decision by Tanzania’s High Court, reached July 2016. At the center of this momentous and landmark victory is Rebeca Gyumi, feminist organizer extraordinaire. A caption for this story could be, “She persisted.” Where have we heard that before? Everywhere!

Here’s the story, in brief. In 1971, Tanzania passed the Law of Marriage Act, which set the age limits for marriage as 18 for boys, 14 for girls. In 1986, Rebeca Gyumi was born in Dodoma, the official national capital of Tanzania, where, according to her own recollections, she saw girls expelled from school because they were pregnant, and she saw the catastrophic consequences of that policy. At a young age, Rebeca Gyumi decided to do something about the situation of girl children in Tanzania. 

Rebeca Gyumi attended and graduated from law school. She founded the Msichana Initiative, whose mission is to advocate for girl child right to education in Tanzania and to make Tanzania a model for other countries in that right. Then, in 2016, Rebeca Gyumi pulled together a team to challenge the Law of Marriage Act. They showed that, at the time, two of every five girls in Tanzania married before the age of 18, making Tanzania one of the “leaders” in rates of child marriage. Despite quite a bit of opposition, Rebecca Gyumi and her colleagues persisted, and, in 2016, the High Court ruled that the Law of Marriage Act was unconstitutional, and the government had one year to fix it. This was a landmark decision and victory … 

And yet … 

In September 2017, Tanzania’s Attorney General formally filed an appeal. Much of the ensuing argument was, predictably, about “Western values corrupting” Tanzania, and in particular Tanzanian girls who were somehow especially vulnerable to, again, “Western values.” That Tanzanian girls might be even more vulnerable if married and denied access to education and other opportunities seemed somehow beside the point.

Rebeca Gyumi persisted, on all fronts. She waged a social and political campaign to both counteract the corruption arguments and to promote a public discussion about the significance of gender equality in Tanzania. Concurrently, she honed the legal arguments, amassing more evidence of the impact of differential limits on marriage for girls across Tanzania. Meanwhile for two years, the government has railed against Gyumi, the High Court decision, and, more generally, gender equality. Remember, this is the same government that has sworn to keep pregnant girls out of school permanently.

This year’s Court of Appeal decision is, again, landmark. Where the High Court left some discretion to the government, now the terms have been set. Additionally, it points to the power of women organizing, organizing, organizing. In that lesson, Rebeca Gyumi has given all of us an important lesson. In 2016, Rebeca Gyumi said, “Changing the law is not the ultimate end to child marriage. Changing mindsets and trying to trigger the shift of customs and traditions is the next thing we are planning to do.” The time is now!

 

(Photo Credit: Face2Face Africa)

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India’s Supreme Court Says NO! to rape in “child marriage”

October 11, 2017 by 8 Comments


Today, Wednesday, October 11, 2017, is International Day of the Girl Child, inaugurated by the United Nations in 2012. According to UN Women, “There are 1.1 billion girls in the world, and every one of them deserves equal opportunities for a better future.” In India today, the Supreme Court took a small step towards empowering girls when it declared that sex with a “child bride” is still rape. This decision overturned Exception 2 of Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which declared that, although 18 is the age of consent, sex with a 15- to 18-year-old girl who is one’s wife is … just marriage. A better future begins with a better present.

There are 1.1 billion girls in the world. According to a recent report, around 12 million children in India were married before the age of 10. Of that 12 million, 7.84 million were girls; 65% of those in India married under the age of 10 are girls. Meanwhile, in 1978, India outlawed so-called “child marriages”, and did so again in 2006.  In many areas of the country, little to nothing has been done to enforce the ban.

Kriti Bharti is a children’s rights advocate and rehabilitation psychologist, based in Rajasthan, which in any given year has among the highest rates of so-called “child marriage” in the world. In 2011, Bharti established the Saarthi Trust, to help young girls figure out ways to avoid being married off. Quickly, she realized that education was not enough, and so she developed a new, additional strategy: child marriage annulment. Since 2011, Kriti Bharti has annulled and prevented hundreds of child marriages. In response to today’s court decision, Bharti says it’s a start but there’s more work to be done: “A minor girl being abused by her husband will tell her mother: ‘I’m feeling pain. [Sex] is uncomfortable. Please help me’. But mothers say: ‘It’s your destiny. You are a female so you have to go through this.’”

It’s not destiny, and it’s not marriage. Under the old law, if a 17-year-old boy and girl engaged in consensual sex, that was statutory rape, but if a 50-year-old man raped his 15-year-old “wife”, that was all fine. That is not marriage.

Women’s groups have announced that they will now focus on marital rape. Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India, said, “This is a timely and positive step in the right direction for the discourse on marital rape and the subject of consent. I would urge the courts to take cognisance of the predicament of adult women who live in fear of rape or sexual violence at the hands of their spouse and in the security of her home.”

Today is International Day of the Girl Child. After decades of struggle, harm, and femicide, the Indian Supreme Court decided that raping girls is wrong. It is a small step forward … for millions and millions of girls. When millions and millions of girls step forward as one, the earth trembles.

 

(Photo Credit: Girls Not Brides)

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In Zimbabwe, the Constitutional Court supports girls who say NO! to child marriage

January 23, 2016 by 7 Comments


On Wednesday, Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court banned child marriages, outlawing the marriage of children below the age of 18. In November 2014, Loveness Mudzuru and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi filed a suit in Zimbabwe in which they charged that the situation of “child brides” violated girls’ constitutional rights. They named Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community and the Attorney General’s Office as respondents responsible for implementation of the Customary Marriages Act, which allows for girls to be married at 16.

Age prohibitions are like speed limits. There’s the letter of the law and then there’s the car on the road. Ruvimbo Tsopodzi was married off at 15: “I’ve faced so many challenges. My husband beat me. I wanted to stay in school but he refused. It was very, very terrible. I want to take this action to make a difference. There are a lot of children getting married.” Tsopodzi is the mother of one child.

Loveness Mudzuru was married off at 16. By the time she was 18, she had given birth to two children: “Young girls who marry early and often in poor families are then forced to produce young children in a sea of poverty and the cycle begins again. My life is really tough. Raising a child when you are a child yourself is hard. I should be going to school.”

The Constitutional Court decision has been described as revolutionary. Tendai Biti, who represented Mudzuru and Tsopodzi, said, “It’s an amazing judgment. The court has passed a revolutionary judgment for women, girls and children. The court should be congratulated for that,” said Biti, who is also opposition PDP leader. I am very pleased to be part of this great history. Parliament should have done this 36 years ago. It has taken a bold decision by a bold court. Marriages before 18 years are no longer possible. This is a revolutionary ruling since the birth of the Constitutional Court in 2013.”

The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, ZLRH, agreed and cautioned, “Although the ruling is a victory and the fact that the primitive practice of child marriages has been recognised and outlawed, ZLHR feels that a lot needs to be done in implementing it and educating Zimbabweans about the legal position so that everyone is aware of this position.”

Veritas, a local NGO who, along with Real Open Opportunities for Transformation Support, ROOTS, initiated the Child Marriage case, commented, “The Constitutional Court this morning delivered its long-awaited ruling on child marriage.  The application to outlaw child marriage succeeded.  This is a great day for gender equality, women’s rights and children’s rights and the fight against poverty … This progressive decision is a mark that the Zimbabwe Constitutional Court is building up a body of constitutional jurisprudence which will also be quoted in other jurisdictions and should assist the Africa-wide campaign against child marriage. Congratulations to the lawyer Tendai Biti who argued the case extremely well before the Bench of the Constitutional Court on January 14th 2015. Well done to the applicants Loveness Mudzuru and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi for having the courage to describe their experiences of child marriage in affidavits for the court.”

Well done, indeed! As Zimbabwean women’s organizations know, more than courage is needed. Action is needed. This court case is only one part of the campaign for women’s equality and emancipation, in Zimbabwe and beyond. In the same month that Loveness Mudzuru and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi filed their suit, the young women’s movement Katswe Sistahood began a parallel campaign, “Give us books, not husbands.” They’re still organizing; that struggle continues. Girls, not brides. Books, not husbands. They should be going to school. Another world is necessary.

(Photo Credit: Oyibos)

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In Zimbabwe and South Africa, girls say NO! to coercion and exploitation

March 25, 2015 by 6 Comments

In November last year, Loveness Mudzuru and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi filed a suit in Zimbabwe in which they charged that the situation of “child brides” violated girls’ constitutional rights. They named Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community and the Attorney General’s Office as respondents responsible for implementation of the Customary Marriages Act, which allows for girls to be married at 16.

Age prohibitions are like speed limits. There’s the letter of the law and then there’s the car on the road. Ruvimbo Tsopodzi, now 18, was married off at 15: “I’ve faced so many challenges. My husband beat me. I wanted to stay in school but he refused. It was very, very terrible. I want to take this action to make a difference. There are a lot of children getting married.” Tsopodzi is the mother of one child.

Loveness Mudzuru, now 19, was married off at 16. By the time she was 18, she had given birth to two children: “Young girls who marry early and often in poor families are then forced to produce young children in a sea of poverty and the cycle begins again. My life is really tough. Raising a child when you are a child yourself is hard. I should be going to school.”

Across the border, in South Africa, the Western Cape High Court this week upheld the conviction of a 32-year-old man on various charges related to the trafficking and rape of a 14-year-old Eastern Cape girl. He tried to argue that the girl was not kidnapped and that there was no rape, but rather they were husband and wife, by a customary practice known as ukuthwala.

The Court rejected the man’s appeal and, more broadly, the argument that customary or traditional law allows for violence against girls and women: “The practice of ukuthwala has in recent years received considerable public attention… inasmuch as its current practice is regarded as an abuse of traditional custom and a cloak for the commission of violent acts of assault, abduction and rape of not only women but children as young as eleven years old by older men.”

Speaking of so-called child marriages, African Union Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, commented: “We cannot downplay or neglect the harmful practice of child marriage, as it has long-term and devastating effects on these girls whose health is at risk.”

While these stories describe girls living in poverty and struggling against physical and structural violence, they also speak of the courage and determination of precisely those girls, who speak for themselves. They say they deserve education, health, well being, safety, and peace. They say as well that individual and collective dignity and justice begin and end with informed consent. They say NO! to all forms of coercion and exploitation of girls, and boys, and they mean it.

(Photo Credit: Girls Not Brides)

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