Kazungula district’s Mandia Basic School headmaster, Joseph Hichaaba, has expressed disappointment at the increase in the number of girls getting married at a tender age in his area.
Mr Hichaaba said young girls in the area have put marriage first instead of school, a situation he described as unfortunate.
In an interview with ZANIS in Mandia yesterday, Mr. Hichaaba complained that pupils at his school do not heed their teachers’ advice of putting education first but instead rush into early marriages.
He disclosed that last year alone 14 pupils from his school, some of them in their fourth grade, fell pregnant.
He said the school authorities have done a lot of sensitization talks on the importance of education and on HIV and AIDS related issues but pupils have not accepted the education from the learning institution.
Mr. Hichaaba blamed the parents for allowing their children to leave school for marriage, adding that parents who marry off their children at a tender age commit a serious offence and can be arrested for that.
He appealed to the parents of the children who had dropped out for whatever reason to send them back to school so that they could be educated.
Meanwhile, Southern Province Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) Regional Coordinator, Dorothy Velemu, was in Mandia yesterday on her continued sensitization programme on human rights in Kazungula District.
Mrs Velemu revealed that her organisation has also received reports of early marriages being practiced in the area, a situation she described as shameful.
She said early marriages should not be entertained because young girls are not in a position to look after their homes properly and that they are too young to carry babies and such a situation is likely to lead to complications that can result in death.
Mrs Velemu said education is a basic human right and children should not be denied the chance to go to school in order for them to have a bright future.
ZANIS/ENDS/NM/EB
Will this dilemma ever stop? This is truly a big shame.
Early marriages have two sides of their story
.- Others ni uchitomfwa/ulunkumbwa.
-Others its due to poverty.
I too am dissappointed. This is terrible! Grade 4?????
If it is poverty does it mean producing more children will solve the problem. It just leads to more mouths that can not be fed and not forgetting a poor girls future that looks bleak.
Parents should take responsibility and not allow these youngsters to get married
Nangu you are very broke,kushipikishafye.These young girls just become slaves to their husbands and produce children they cannot feed and clothe.Chibi sana.Lesa tatemwa
its really sad for a grade 4 girl to get married. many people still don’t understand that education is one way of ending poverty in a family. on a sad note sorry chief mpezeni on the death of his wife M.H.S.R.I.P.
You are right Jamaco, on poverty issue its a matter of survival . Where families cant afford to meet the demands of their large families, children turn into street kids and others are better married off,. you would be sickened/shocked at how much low some villagers can go when faced with such a desperate situation, when in the first place it was their fault that they did not practice family planning!!!!
School admins should start profiling sexually active pupils and puting them on forced birth control if they are to contain the situation. As it is they have failed as parents as well as teachers
Why go for a grade 4 go pick your own size or age ,perv
Pervs for real. Knocking up kids and the girls are being blamed instead. Vitendeni!
Grade 4,so sad indeed and poverty is to blame
Please G4! Where are we headed as a country? Early marriages in Zambia are just too rampant and its not just in rural districts but in urban compunds also.These young ones are just interested in producing kids without the necessary logistics as to how they will raise them and they are at odds with family planning.More poverty in Zed.Sad!
Zamtel 0 Zesco 0
Hope you wont finish all the girls with these early marrieges Coz in 2013 Iam coming to marry ku Zambia.Okay guys this is serious early marrieges should not be allowed in our country.Honestly how can one impregnant a grade four sure? Now I dont know who to blame coz even that grade 4 was willing to sleep with whoever impregnated her.On the other hand Mwebafyashi please lets not abuse our children coz you want ukulilapo it will be better if these early marrieges are done in a balanced way 16yrs gal and 17yrs boy not 16yrs gal and a 72yrs old man umwaice alemona item yabakulu iyaba worn out.Oh Lord help us,I have just realised that certain things like this needs God’s intervetion.
Point of correction Ba Martworld…. ati umwaiche alemona intem ya bakulu…aee… ni ifi tenwu fya ba kulu. iliko bad situation but ka…
Thenjiwe Stevens (Mrs)
Thanks for the Correction but naimpita correction yakaena I wonder if at all these old men really satisfy these young ladies in everything since they are already tired,anyway may be Iam just thinking loud.My question is when these ladies who are forced into early marrieges nabalepela kumbi can we blame them? I know from Christian point of view its bad,but kubuntunse can we?
Ba lusakatimes limbi tamwa umfwikishefye, ni 14yrs and not 4yrs.
When shall the women of our country rise together so as the can get a great Gender bill passed. As a man I shall back this all the way to the presidents office. Infact I shall send our President email and a hand written letter. Laugh if you want to thios has gone too far, nazanda mange.
“Thou shalt be fruitful and multiply” says the Bible, and not ” Thou shalt be educated and diversify”.
a normal person cant marry his own kid,where is the law for such madness to be happening?
When all is said and done it is what is obtaining that counts. As long as the causes of these early marriages are not tackled with the seriousness the deserve we shall remain a laughing stock!!!!
In LOZI one proverb says “Wamumona maoyo atuna kwanu walyamba ni mwana anamukuka”
translated “A well behaved child is from a mannered parentage and an ill mannered kid is from a concubine/ a broken parental background”
‘Parents train your kids a the right way when they grow they will never depart from it.’
We need parents not fathers or mothers any one can be that .But a parent is rare to find these days.
Stay Blessed!!!
“Mr Hichaaba said young girls in the area have put marriage first instead of school, a situation he described as unfortunate”, is a direct opposite to what I have been doing. While it is regretable that I have not secured a wife to be yet, it is very important that I have come this far in formal education. I hope the young girls and boys will take a leaf from me and others who have abstained from early marriages so that they can have enough education and also limit the number of would-be offsprings that they might produce in future.
On the early marriages, it is a very tricky thing when the Grade 4 kid is impregnanted and there is no one to look after her and her unborn baby and so the easiest appears to just send the impregnanted girl to the one who impregnanted her in marriage.
#16, Am sorry my spelling misled the whole sentence and meaning. I meant that not umwaiche alemona item yaba…. but ifintwenu fyaba….., sorry I think I was having a glass of my special red when posting that.. Have a gday Martworld Terrence.
The problem I see in most Zambian rural education is lack of motivation. Maybe if we can improve the quality and standard of eduction things could possibly change. Otherwise the slaughter on young women continues..
Well, we are underinformed here, how old are these grade fours, do they get married willingly or they are forced? Its is sad but if they are like 16 year old grade 4s, maybe thats just what they want………….this doesnt directly convert to okay but atleast its not defilement!?