Through the mirror of an early forced marriage

When Sailepu decided on the fate of Normemiri, he didn’t seem to realize what he was doing at the time. All he wanted was to marry her off to an older man in exchange of dowry.

In the wake of yet another long journey into her young life, as a child mother she struggled and encountered many challenges. Two of her first children were epileptic and had to tend to them most of her time, not forgetting she also had old man (husband) to take care of.

Her frail husband needed more attention. She had no education and a formal job was not anywhere her dream.

Whenever I met her, I would take her for lunch and give her some money (unsustainable).   Her life was like cut off from the rest of the world. It revolved around what her father chose for her, to become another man’s property and no one could take her away from him as the tradition/culture dictated.

She left home, for the shopping Centre where she visited the grinding mill and picked what dropped on the ground (corn / maize) for the family. She later got casual work as a cleaner in a small hotel and by the end of the day she would take some food home.

My campaign is ‘stop child marriage’ #letchildrenbechildren to help support girls through education. A strategy that includes ‘peace as a value ingredient so that families can peacefully participate in creating a trans-formative positive change for ‘peace for girls’