We were taught how to please husbands as child brides at 14 | World | News

A sick practice used to prepare child brides for “marriage” is being revived by young girls in Zimbabwe who are rejecting the tradition of teaching children how to sexually please their adult husbands.

“Nhanga,” a local term meaning “girls’ bedroom,” was historically a female-only space for teaching obedience to adolescent girls.

Thomas F. Johnston wrote that the gated lodge was used for “secret, musical rites of passage that qualified young girls for lobolo, bride price negotiation.” The Secret Music of Nhanga Rites.

He added: “Through song, gesture, and mild forms of physical mutilation, Nhanga’s old female overseers teach the adults how to sexually please the husband and rehearse them in the duties of a young wife: carrying water long distances, clearing village fireplaces of ashes, gathering firewood, tending the fields, threshing corn in mortar, and showing humility to older wives.”

In Shamva this tradition is reversed.

“Nhanga is a safe space here, every girl feels free,” said 18-year-old Anita Razo, who joined the group at the age of 14 and now mentors young girls. Associated Press.

Inside the tent, the girls, led by a mentor, openly address issues of sexuality, child marriage, teenage pregnancy, gender discrimination, education, economic empowerment and the law. The aim is to empower girls against child marriage in the country, where one in three girls are married before the age of 18, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, which calls it “a national emergency requiring urgent action.”

Zimbabwe and many other African countries have banned child marriage, but poverty, slow enforcement of laws, and cultural and religious traditions make it difficult to eradicate it permanently.

When she was 17, Samantha Chidodo was forced into an abusive marriage with a man almost ten years her senior, but she is now 26 and a senior law student.

“All I wanted to do was play and think about my future. Suddenly I had to be a mother and a wife,” she said of a camp that mixed tent sessions with a “girls and goals” football tournament.

“I didn’t even know what to do. I was sleeping like the dead, not realizing I needed to breastfeed.” He said the woman next door would pick up the crying baby, feed him, and give him back to the sleeping young mother.

He left after two years but was ostracized by his neighbors. With support from the Rosaria Memorial Trust, he returned to school and became one of the pioneers of modern Nhanga.

“In the beginning, we were just 20 girls. Almost 90% of us did well, some went to university, some started projects. The community started to see our strength and encouraged their children to participate,” she said. “Nhanga is considered cool now.”

She currently joins more than 200 schoolgirls in her village, and many schools in Zimbabwe are adopting the model. Local village head Xmas Savanhu said leaders now enforce rules against early marriage and offenders are reported to the police and forced to pay a cow as a fine entrusted to the chief for the girl’s education.

He explained: “This allows him to return to school without financial worries.”

Enet Tini, the teacher and mentor of the girls whose school adopted this model, said cultural attitudes persist despite their efforts and government policies. “The difference between us is adults. They see pregnancy or child marriage as indiscipline and think girls should be punished,” he added.

Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, Deputy Director-General of UN Women and founder of the Rosaria Memorial Trust, described child marriage as “mainly rape and sexual exploitation” and a worldwide problem, but “much higher in Africa.”

“Laws are important… but reaching the girls themselves, changing the social norms in our societies, is critical,” said Gumbonzvanda, who founded the Rozaria Memorial Trust in 2007 in honor of her late mother, who married at age 13. Teen mentor Razo agrees that the long-term solution must include young girls, saying: “If we can pressure each other to behave badly, then we can influence each other to behave positively.”