Ending child-marriages and investing in Africa’s future -Theresa Kachindamoto

“Educate a girl and you educate the whole area… You educate the world”, a direct quote from Theresa Kachindamoto. Theresa is chief of Dedza district (Malawi). During her 15 year reign as chief, she is responsible for terminating over 2600 child-marriages in Malawi. Child-marriage has been a major concern in this small landlocked country.

How it all started

When Theresa assumed office as chief in 2003, she was disturbed to find that there were high rates of child-marriages in her district. This encouraged her to begin her campaign. Her efforts came with a lot of resistance from the community, from parents and even from the child couples themselves. The key challenge in ending child-marriages in Malawi is the acceptance of the practice as a norm as well as poverty. Girls are often married off to improve a family’s financial standing or at times to repay a debt. Taking that into consideration, Kachindamoto knew that she would have a tough time trying to convince the community to stop the practice and change their mindset. Instead, she changed the law. Theresa got her 50 sub-chiefs to sign an agreement to abolish early marriage under customary-law and annul any existing unions in her area of authority.

Steady progress through the years

In 2012, A United Nations survey ranked Malawi 8th out of 20 countries in the world to have the highest rates of child-marriage. However, in a recent survey, done in 2017, that ranking has moved from it’s 8th position to 12th out of the top 20 in the world. It goes to show that Theresa’s efforts haven’t been in vain. In 2017, Malawi’s parliament passed a law which forbade marriage before the age of 18 and although this is a step in the right direction, Kachindamoto feels that there is still more that can be done. Currently, she is asking parliament to raise the minimum age of marriage from 18 to 21 years old. Her belief is “if they are educated, they can be and have whatever they want”.

Addressing child-marriage through education

Kachindamoto strongly believes in addressing child-marriage through education and has ensured that every child, especially girls, in her district are sent to school. She often subsidizes the children’s schooling. In 2015, she told Maravi Post “I have terminated 330 marriages, yes, of which 175 were girl-wives and 155 were boy-fathers. I wanted them to go back to school and that has worked”. Her campaign against child-marriages has brought her international fame with major news networks such as BBC News, Aljazeera and CNN interviewing her and bringing awareness to people all over the world about this unfortunate issue. This has resulted to many donations and philanthropists helping out the country. One popular philanthropist being Madonna who has not only donated to children’s causes but also adopted 2 Malawian children on one of her many trips to the country.

The statistics

Every minute, 23 girls worldwide become underage brides. The chief believes that this is the main reason why poverty is rampage in Malawi as girls are often forced to leave school once they get married off. Her belief is strongly supported by a World Bank report from June 2017 which states that “every year of secondary school completed increases an individual girl’s future earning power by 18% and ending child-marriage worldwide could add $500 billion per year to the global economy”.

With women like Theresa Kachindamoto working tirelessly at building a brighter future for young African girls and boys alike, there are endless possibilities for the African continent. To Quote Nelson Mandela: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. It starts off with a ripple in a small village in Malawi and before we know it Africa will be making enough waves to become the world’s powerhouse.