Zamara Foundation Fights Early Marriages in Kilifi, Kwale
Zamara foundation executive director Wambui Kimani stressing a point to a young mother. (Photo By Harrison Kivisu)
By Harrison Kivisu
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
Coastal counties have been challenged to ensure the operationalization of return-to-school policy for pregnant and young mothers so as to fight early marriages.
Zamara foundation, a leading non-governmental organization (NGO) in Kenya, says teenage pregnancies stand at 23 per cent in Kwale and Kilifi and there’s need for quick interventions by the two counties against the vice.
The leading organization is challenging the counties to institute a comprehensive sexuality education in schools to ensure young boys and girls get information that would protect them from early pregnancies.
Speaking during a sensitization campaign bringing together young mothers in Kilifi and Kwale, Zamara foundation executive director Wambui Kimani asked various government agencies to ensure free access to sanitary pads for girls in schools.
“In Kwale and Kilifi, early marriages and enforced are at 23 per cent out of 100. This is such a huge number, we can’t sit pretty and watch, we have embarked on sensitizing them on their sexual reproductive health (SRHR) rights as a way of making them informed,” she said.
The official said the first alternative of a teenage girl in school should not be to drop out when she gets pregnant.
She also cautioned parents to stop forcing their adolescent girls to early marriages saying that is a violation of child’s rights.
“Can the county governments fully enforce the return to school policy for young mothers. Can the counties also ensure access to sanitary products to reduce stigma in young girls and lastly can they also institute comprehensive sexuality education in school? This will remedy the vices,” he said.
This week, the organization led two community dialogues this week that brought together over 50 girls in Kwale and Kilifi culminating in deep conversations on the reality of teen motherhood.
The conversations also centered on the inherent strength of these fierce adolescent girls and young women and the struggle of staying afloat in the face of adversity.
“Defining marriage as young as 18 disregards the reality that girls haven’t reached full physical and emotional maturity. The concept of ‘free and full consent’ to marriage becomes a farce when girls are pressured or forced into unions before they can understand the implications,” she added.
Some of the teenage mothers who went through the sensitization forums expressed their readiness to get economically empowered so that they can live a dignified life while raising up their children they got at tender ages.
Sharon Kadzo, 22, a mother of one, was forced to drop out of secondary school education due to early pregnancy is among those who got sensitized about matters of family planning and use of contraceptives to avoid unwanted pregnancies.
On her part Fatuma Abu, a mother of two, challenges young girls in school to focus on education and abstain from engaging in matters of sex without sexual education. She says lack of information led her to become a young mother.
It is against the above background that Zamara Foundation has embarked on a campaign to unpack the reality and end teen pregnancies and protect girls.
“In the dialogues parents were highlighted as those that promote child marriages to some extent, and we held a convening with the parents to listen to the girls.
We held space and enjoyed listening to the vulnerable conversations of these young women and girls,” she added.
The foundation has for the past week been hosting community dialogues with an aim to dismantle this narrative.
“By fostering open discussions about these harmful beliefs, we’re prioritizing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) for women in Kwale and Kilifi,” she added.
According to the organization, disturbing projections estimate over 100 million girls will be married before 18 in the next decade.
The lobby believes this is a blatant violation of their human rights and a public health crisis.
Here in Kenya, counties like Kilifi and Kwale have alarmingly high rates of child marriage.
The dialogue would like to expose a horrifying link between child marriage, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of girls and young women, and gender-based violence in Kilifi and Kwale.
Girls who marry young are far more likely to experience physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their husbands.
This violence further restricts their agency and reinforces the power imbalance within the marriage.
Zamara Foundation is a feminist homegrown organization founded in 2016 and registered in Kenya in 2019.
Zamara is anchored on radical, bold perspectives on bodily autonomy and integrity, intersectional feminist transformational leadership within the young women and a strong voice that speaks to the sexual and reproductive health and rights of young women, girls and those that are differently challenged.
Zamara Foundation focus counties are Nairobi, Kwale and Kilifi. Zamara Foundation’s core values are deeply rooted on African feminist principles.
