I was in the Kitchen on Sunday night,
fixing supper for the family because that is what I do these days. Well, I’m
not only preparing for bachelorhood but also impressing the ladies because I
heard knowing how to cook earns you more ‘bonga points’ in the romance field.
For anyone, being in the kitchen means more than just fixing supper. It will
include any other thing from washing utensils, cleaning up the house and other
house chores. This is something for men and something else for the women.
Well, I was also listening to the 9:00 pm
(since I couldn’t watch) and this story about girls as young as 10 years old
that were being married off really caught my attention. These girls are almost
the age of my younger sister in class 4 but are now wives of young men of at
least 27 years. To communities such as the Maasai and the Samburu, this is no
surprise at all. It is their culture and this shouldn’t be a shocking thing to
anyone within their region. What’s the whole idea behind the culture, you may
ask.
Such communities take pride in and measure
their wealth in terms of the number of cattle, goats and sheep – we all
remember our history lessons, yes? It is in these same communities that men are
the final say. They marry off their daughters at this tender age in exchange of
a huge bride price and the interesting part is the gigantic respect that they
receive from the rest of the community. The marriage is arranged and in no
time, the girl child is a wife to someone.
I appreciate culture, but when it comes to
such traditions, we need to wake up and draw the line. Girls at this age are
still memorizing their ABCDEFGHs in schools but due to the circumstances, these
other girls are forced to learn PREGNANCY in their new homesteads. They are
expected to carry out duties for fully matured women; fetching firewood and
water from sources that are miles away. In a different part of the country,
girls at this age are testing and fixing their dolls. While others are living a
life with variations such as being a child, a youth and an adult, these
children experience a brief part of childhood and expressly missiled to
adulthood.
The dangers are even worse when it comes to
motherhood. Imagine how complicated it is for a child to carry another child
for 9 months. The circumstances that led to this are unimaginable. There have
been reports of young girls dying at child labor because of complications
during pregnancy and childbirth. What if they do fine during such stages? How
is someone expected to bring up their own children when they aren’t even teenagers?
As a country we need to think about such
individuals in our community. We have been talking about empowering women
andeducating the girl child for a long time now. There shouldn’t be any
celebrations unless such girls are rescued from the claws of their own
community and put in schools. Women don’t have a say in such arrangements and
this is why we need to step in and help them. As a community, we may have come
a long way with the traditions but we need to wake up and see that some of them
hurt our own children.
Sure, the bride price is great but is that
really what it takes to rip away someone’s childhood? Is that what it takes to
make your own child someone’s wife? You will never see her happy face when she
plays in your compound. All you will wake up to is a whole herd of cattle,
waiting to be milked. Just like how a young child is tempted by candy, this is
offer is truly tempting. The greed of all that is what is putting the girl
child in ugly circumstances. Let’s step up and stop the greed.
