Child Marriage

 
 
Child marriage is an element in stories from five of the countries (Bangladesh, the Gambia, Indonesia, Nigeria and the United Kingdom), with parents and guardians arranging marriages for girls for a variety of reasons. These marriages were generally difficult for the girls, who left behind their childhoods (often having to leave school) and found themselves vulnerable to their mostly older husbands and sometimes their in-laws.
 
Such harmful effects of child marriage are well-documented globally. But setting a minimum age of marriage is a particular challenge in some Muslim contexts; often the example of the Prophet’s marriage to Aishah is cited to justify child marriage. However, there have long been debates about Aishah’s actual age at the time of the marriage, and their marriage was not one of domination but of egalitarianism, respect and love. Needless to say, there have also been vast social, cultural and economic changes in society since the time of the Prophet. Far from being a religious mandate, child marriage today is a devastating practice for millions of girls who have little to no voice in their futures.
 
We observed the following trends and experiences relating to child marriage based on stories shared by resource persons from five countries:
 
 

In the life stories, child marriage often served as a solution for families who were poor or could not adequately care for all of their children (and so married off the girls) or as a way to build or extend relationships with other families.

 
Several of the Nigerian resource persons were married to older men who provided gifts and money to their guardians to show their interest in the girls and sway the guardians to agree to the marriage. As Salamatu narrated:

When I turned 13, a man called Danlami (who was over 40 years of age with a reputation for having been divorced six times and who was also widely known as a wife-beater) came and asked me to marry him. When I refused, he went to my stepmother and gave her some money, which she accepted. I would refuse to see him whenever he came but he would go straight to my stepmother and give her the gifts I had turned down.
 
When he sent his people to my father with his marriage proposal, my father said he would have to ask me first before giving them an answer. As soon as they left he called my stepmother and told her. Eagerly and immediately, she told him that Danlami had been visiting me and I was interested in him. Without asking me, he sent word to them that I had accepted. I tried in vain to get my father to listen to me that it was not true but my pleas fell on deaf ears.
 
Upon learning of the impending marriage, I ran to my maternal aunt’s house in the next village but my father found out where I was and brought me back. My aunt tried to talk him out of the marriage but he would not listen. The marriage took place immediately after I was brought back.

Sinta of Indonesia was engaged at nine and married at 14 to ensure the school her father ran would continue after his death. As her mother said when she was suddenly married, “Your father passed away when he was building a pesantren [Islamic boarding school]. And you are a woman, so there is no way you can lead the pesantren. Therefore you should get married so that your husband can take over the pesantren.”
 
Sumera from the United Kingdom says she was never asked nor consulted on her prospective marriage, since “Good Muslim girls didn’t talk about marriage; they certainly didn’t challenge their parents regarding the choice of marriage partner.” But when her parents first tried to arrange a marriage for her when she was 14, she resisted and ran away. She finally agreed to marry when she was 16, and chose her father’s nephew over her mother’s nephew. She saw the marriage as beneficial to the families and her husband:
 

My parents’ intention was to get rid of the burden of a daughter and my husband’s family’s intentions were to get him to England in order to gain opportunities for a better life for his family...My parents had no interest in my aspirations and what I wanted in the future.

Sultana from Bangladesh married around the age of 12 because her father had died when she was six, her mother had been cheated out of the land she inherited, and the family was poor and had no resources. Sultana and her sister had gone to work for wealthier families in the village. Sultana met her husband, who was about 20, in the bazaar and they liked each other. His family had some resources and resisted the marriage because her family was poor and couldn’t provide social connections or a dowry (customary in Bangladesh). Her family was relieved that she found a husband, especially since she had no male guardian to make the marriage arrangements.
 
 

In many of the stories that documented child marriage, the girls were not aware of the marriage arrangements and not fully consulted or asked for their consent.

 
Zainab from Nigeria said she did not know about her marriage before it was already arranged, and was surprised and shocked to learn she was to be married:
 

One evening when I was 14, two elderly men came into my sister’s house. I welcomed them, spread a mat for them and brought water. I never for one moment thought that these men were representing Mallam Baba and had come to ask for my hand in marriage. No one informed me. Thereafter, all I saw was my sister buying bridal gifts, a bed, dishes, pots, etc. It never occurred to me that they were for me. I only came to find out when, one day, Mallam Baba’s friend came to the shop and called me ‘amariya’ (new bride). I asked him, ‘Who is the amariya?’
He replied, ‘Don’t you know you are to be married on Friday?’ Perplexed and with my heart in my mouth, I asked, ‘To whom?’ He responded, ‘Mallam Baba!’

 
Similarly, Rafeeqa from the United Kingdom was forced to marry at the age of 15 without her prior knowledge:
 

My parents had always said daughters are never ours to keep, they are somebody else’s property...My Granddad did my and my sister’s engagement; we knew nothing about this. My nikah (marriage) was in Pakistan. I had no idea I was about to be married. It was early evening and I remember trying to escape to bed when one of my aunties said, ‘You are getting married in a minute, you can’t go anywhere.’ That’s when reality sunk in, and I felt sad.
 
I just remember being ushered into a little room with a big veil on my head, in my nightclothes, and asked to repeat some verses of the Qur’an...I began to cry and no one would look at me or answer my questions. I was too young to be married. My father was present; my Mum was in the UK. I remember signing a document in a blur, and then everybody was rejoicing and giving thanks to my dad.
 
I felt utterly helpless and sad. The whole experience for me was a negative one; it made me question the whole of Islam. I was so angry and felt guilty all the time. No one listened to my aspirations. I was just a woman with no voice, screaming silently. This was not what I had imagined marriage to be like...

 
Sinta, the daughter of a Kyai (religious leader and head of a pesantren) from Indonesia, discussed her arranged engagement:
 

When I was nine, I was engaged with the son of a Kyai from another village. I was still playing like other kids. Every time my future mother-in-law paid a visit, I was told to bathe, dress up nicely and act properly like a lady. I was asked to sungkem (kiss the back of her hand on my knees), shake her hand and sit nicely. Once in a while my future husband also came. I was embarrassed because he was a man I didn’t actually know. I did not know the meaning of engagement, marriage, husband or inlaws because I was a third-grader.

The young brides had little or no power in the face of their husbands, in-laws and co-wives, especially when their husbands were older men. The stories demonstrate abuses and ill-treatment that the young girls experienced because of their age and vulnerability.

 
After her marriage, Sultana and her husband lived in a joint household with her husband’s brother, sister, father and mother. As shared by the Bangladeshi team: “She had to do all the work, cooking, cleaning, sweeping, washing, laundry. It was strenuous for a 12/13 year old. They would scold and bad-mouth her. They would call her poor, ‘low class/birth’, ugly, etc. The main issue was that she had brought nothing to the household. However, she was not physically beaten. This Sultana considered as good luck.”
 
Salamatu from Nigeria, whose marriage story is told above, refused to have sexual relations with her 40-year-old husband. He beat her severely for months and eventually raped her. When she ran away, her father beat her and sent her back. After being beaten and raped by her husband for about a year, Salamatu was able to run away for good.
 
Shadiya from the UK reported:

Earlier on in the marriage I continuously felt inhuman, as if I didn’t matter. My feelings had no importance or recognition. Whatever I did was not good enough. I couldn’t ever say anything, even when my four-year-old daughter was taken away from me. I don’t know how I got through those years. All I know is that although my parents were supposedly there for me through everything, it wasn’t really the case. And as long as I returned to my husband after I cried to them, then it was all okay.

Many resource persons mentioned how child marriage prevented them from continuing their education, to their long-term detriment.

 
Ruba from Bangladesh and her sisters only studied until the end of primary school. As the Bangladeshi team reports: “They were expected to and were married off at a young age. Ruba laments that she wanted to further pursue her education but could not due to her mother’s sickness. Her mother later passed away after being ill for a considerable period of time. The gap in education as well as early marriage are perhaps factors caused mostly by the economic condition of their family, but there are social conditions involved in this process as well. Ruba points out that in her social setting, women are expected to look after the family rather than pursue further education, especially in times of crisis.” Ruba’s father died when she was 14, and she ended up marrying at 18.
 
Rashida from Nigeria said:

I tried to continue with my education since prior to our marriage, [my husband] promised that I could go back to school. When I asked him, he refused even when I told him that it would help me contribute to the family income...I could not understand this as my brother-in-law allowed his wife to continue her studies. And this is coming from someone from an educated family.

Hauwa Balarabe from Nigeria told the country team that one of her biggest regrets in her life was not furthering her education. “She felt that her lack of education resulted in her not knowing her rights in society and during her failed marriage, which has contributed to the hardship she went through all her life… She felt that if she had gone to school she would not have married so early and have had so many problems, and would certainly not have become a commercial sex worker.”
 
Murja, also from Nigeria, was forced to withdraw from school at 14 to marry her 28-year-old cousin. She divorced him at the age of 16 after he abused her and neglected her and their baby daughter. During the divorce hearings, she offered to stay in the marriage on one condition—that she be allowed to go back to school to realize her dream. He refused. After their divorce, she returned to school and met her second husband, who supported her studies. She reflected:

Forced marriage and withdrawing girls from school to marry them off is a very bad practice...Withdrawing girls from school is the end of a dream and you don’t know what potentials you are snuffing out as they could be of immense benefit to society if they were allowed to have a good education.

In several cases, the early marriage was proposed, championed or at least supported by a woman—mother, step-mother, sister, etc.—rather than simply being pushed by the male authority figure.

 
Rashida from Nigeria was married at 16. Her mother married at the age of nine. Rashida narrated:
 

My father was not in favour of the marriage as he could see I was interested in furthering my education, while my mother wanted me to marry. This could be in part because from the time I was 14 years old, I started getting marriage proposals...There was a lot of friction during this period between my parents but in the end my mother won the battle and I got married.

Murja from Nigeria states that her marriage to her older cousin was arranged by her step-mother and aunty, who encouraged her uncle to marry her off.