On November 10, 2008) Nearly half of all Central African women marry before they are 19, according to UNICEF. Despite public campaigns against child marriage, parents often force their daughters to marry young, supposedly to protect them from sexual harassment and out-of-wedlock pregnancies, as well as to relieve the financial burden of providing for their daughters.
But radio listeners in Chad recently heard another perspective. An in-depth radio program tackled the sensitive issue of child marriages, also known as “thunderbolt marriages.” The program explored risks such as health problems for girls physically unready for pregnancy and a high rate of marital unhappiness and divorce. read more..
The program included an interview with a young woman identified as Madame Dina, who was married at 14. “At fourteen, you’re still a young child,” she said. “I stole my childhood.”
Produced by journalist Frédéric Doumdigao Komba during a weeklong training on issues-based journalism by Internews this summer, the program aired on Radio La Voix de l’Espérance (Voice of Hope Radio) in N’Djaména, the capital of Chad.
An interviewee identified as Madame Naïma said her father forced her to marry at 13. “I am not the only girl to marry so early; almost all my big sisters down to the little sisters have done so,” she said.
Poverty and poor schooling rates, especially for girls, are the main causes of early, voluntary marriages, according to a mother of four children who was interviewed on the program. A father advised listeners that parents should pay more attention to their children’s education, to better protect them against the consequences of an early and failed marriage.
A gynecologist and obstetrician testified that child marriages sometimes result in permanent health consequences for women. Teenager’s bodies are not always prepared for pregnancies, which often kill young wives, he said on the program.
A representative from the Women Lawyer Association told listeners that according to Chadian law, the minimum age for marriage was set in 1958 as 15 for girls and 18 for boys. The legal age should now be raised, not only for the sake of young women, but also their future children, she said, arguing that it would also help protect many teenage wives from sexual abuse.
Due to the low education level in Chad and lack of access to the Internet, the professional skills capacity of journalists is very low; many do not know how to write well in French or use a computer. The radio program on child marriage was produced under Internews’ community radio project in Chad, which launched in September 2007 to improve the quality of radio journalism by training and mentoring reporters at community radio stations.
Internews’ work in Chad is made possible by grants from the US State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
