By Okech Francis
JUBA, South Sudan
Early child marriage is endemic in South Sudan, especially in pastoral communities where about 40 percent of the girls below 18 are married, usually to older men.
With many treating girls as an "investment," the practice is rife, especially since the law turns a blind eye.
"I have to cope with rivalry, competition and jealousy for my husband," one 21-year-old, who was married off to a much older man in 2009, told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity for fear of reprimand by her family and spouse.
Her 52-year-old husband, a cattle keeper from Jonglei State, relocated his family – including her and four other wives, along with their children – to Juba earlier this year.
"The other women are much older than me, but he pays more attention to me, so they don't want me [around]," she said.
She had been in secondary school when she was "given" to her husband in marriage in return for 50 heads of cattle.
"I protested; I did not want to go," she recalled, bitterly. "I wanted to finish my education, but my parents forced me and beat me until I had to accept."
Adau Florence, 25, married ten years ago.
"My parents told me I was old enough [to marry] and if I stayed home any longer no man would want to marry me," she told AA.
Florence did not know her husband's age, but said he had two wives from previous marriages.
"He didn't beat me, but I had to look after myself and struggle to get what I want," she said.
"Sometimes, when I or my child got sick, it was very difficult to raise money for treatment," Florence recalled.
Her husband, who had owned a shop in Malakal, provincial capital of Upper Nile State, was killed in fighting between government and rebel forces.
Florence and her eight-year-old son later fled to capital Juba, where she now sells roasted groundnuts to eke out a living.
"I get about 10 South Sudanese pounds (roughly $2) when I sell well; this is the only source of my survival," the frail-looking woman told AA.
The South Sudan Human Rights Commission has linked the phenomenon of child marriage to the country's prevailing cultural norms.
"Culture is in a tug-of-war with our laws," Margaret Mesiku, the commission's director for research and chairperson of its gender committee, told AA.
"Culture and law should come up [i.e., reach a compromise] for one thing to be followed," she said.
"Even the lawmakers are the ones doing this. Some girls are being married by intellectuals, who say it is the culture," Mesiku asserted.
She cited fears of reporting cases of rape as another reason for early marriages.
"People fear to report cases [of rape] to police, so the girls are simply forced to marry the man. Even after marriage, the man continues to marry others," Mesiku said.
According to another commission official, South Sudan has no specific laws on early child marriage.
"The situation of early marriages is very common; we don't have specific laws that govern them," Agnes Anduna Marone told AA. "In some cultures, at 13 or 14, when the girls start menstruating, they are forced to marry."
-Investment-
Mesiku believes poverty is the main motivation for early child marriage.
"Once the rich [show they] have a lot of money or cows to marry, the parents give away their daughters," she told AA.
Fatuma Ibrahim, chief of child protection at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in South Sudan, agrees.
"It's more about the dowry paid, and more with communities that keep cattle and use cattle to pay dowries," she told AA.
"With the war, people started getting poorer and started seeing that if their daughter was married, they could get cows, and their brothers or even the uncles could become married," noted Ibrahim.
"Having a daughter became an investment. The earlier the daughter got married, the better, because if the daughter stayed long – and maybe began having an affair with someone – they [the family] would lose more [in terms of the dowry]," she added.
"So we started seeing girls getting married earlier," said the UNICEF official. "It was the girl-child who became the victim; they became a commodity of sorts."
She confirmed reports that girls as young as 12 were being married off.
"We have heard these reports and some have been verified," Ibrahim told AA.
Citing the results of a 2008 South Sudan household survey (made public in 2010), she said that about 40 percent of South Sudanese girls below 18 had been married off.
"In many cases, they're forced," the UNICEF official asserted. "I would say 90 percent are forced [to marry]; they don't choose to."
She said the practice was difficult to combat because so many men were engaged in it.
"It's across the board. It's cattle keepers, civil servants, teachers; you have chiefs, administrators – you have all levels [engaging in the practice]," Ibrahim lamented. "This is more like sexual exploitation and abuse."
-Messed up future-
The UNICEF official said very few girls actually wanted to get married when still very young.
"If that happens, it's peer pressure, because they see [someone of] the same age has got married," she told AA.
Ibrahim said early marriage had a major effect on girls.
"Socially, this child will stop going to school. So what hope does she have to develop herself, or even her child?" she asked.
"The fact that they get married so early really impacts their lives at every level – and then their future is really bleak," the UNICEF official lamented. "They will remain where they are."
Achol Chuchu is a case in point.
She dropped out of primary school in 2008 after getting pregnant.
"I was 17 years old then," she recalled. "I thought I was already mature enough for marriage."
"With this man's assurance and all his promises of settling down with me, I shared the idea with my parents who gave me the go-ahead," Chuchu told AA.
Her courtship lasted one year. In 2009, she started a family with the man who she trusted.
"He told me he had no other woman apart from me," Chuchu recalled. "My parents trusted him so much; they hoped for the best in our relationship."
"However, the relationship soon turned dreadful, when his first wife – with whom he had two children – discovered that he was cheating on her," she said.
"I was already three months pregnant with his child. I was abandoned by someone who I had trusted," added a tearful Chuchu.
"This man stopped giving me any financial support, so I had to find a way to meet my needs," she recalled.
She rented a grass thatched hut, where she started making a little money washing clothes.
Unable to fend for herself, however, Chuchu eventually returned to her parents' home in 2010.
"I have had the worst marriage experience," Chuchu, now 24, told AA. "I could have been a lawyer had this guy not messed up my future."
"Some of my friends have made it in life," she lamented. "I feel bad when I see some of them driving or working in good places."
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