End Child Marriage
Gloria’s parents were struggling to take care of their children. When her father died, life got even harder for the family and it was all depending on the mother’s hard work to survive.
“I was supposed to be in school at the time I got married,” Gloria said. “I was 12 years old when I got married to a 35 year old man. They said that the man would take care of me, my siblings, and my mother, due to the poverty levels,” she added.
“I cried because I was too young to get married,” she continued. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t understand the meaning of marriage, I was filled with fear.”
Gloria lost her freedom after the marriage.
“When I was staying with mum I was free to do what I wanted to do,” she continued. “Now in the house I was taken to, I wasn’t free. I was scared because he refused for me to do anything, and only he decided what should be done.”
6 months after the marriage, she discovered that she got pregnant.
“When I was pregnant I felt so much pain because I wasn’t ready to conceive at that age,” she said. “I had no knowledge of how to deliver a baby.”
When she was still pregnant, her husband died and she had to marry her husband’s brother as her second husband. Eventually, Gloria got abused domestically which leaded to miscarriage. Years passed, until Gloria eventually became pregnant again. She was still pregnant when her second husband also died and Gloria, still only a child herself, was left alone to give birth.
“If my child could get an education, his life would be different from mine,” she said. “When children are kept in school, they get educated and they reap the benefits. I would like to tell others that when you get married at an early age, things are difficult and you lose all your rights and you suffer a lot.”
????: Camfed/Eliza Powell
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