'I was playing outside when my mother told me I would marry.
My life was ruined': Ethiopian child bride, forced into marriage at 10,
pregnant at 13 and widowed by 14, on the moment her world changed forever.
Alemtsahye Gebrekidan, (not pictured) now 38, from Ethiopia, was married
off at the age of 10 to a boy aged 16 whom she had never met. She was one of
the estimated 14.2 million underage girls who are married off each year. Now
living in London, Alemtsahye shares what becoming a child bride is really like
and explains why it has to end. Reports by Mailonline
I was 10 when my childhood came to an abrupt end. 'I was
playing outside and my mum called me into the house,’ 'She said "you're
going to marry". I was surprised and I cried but I didn't say anything to
them [her parents].' Her wedding, to a boy of 16, took place just two months
later.
'I was in school,' she remembers, 'although I stopped the
school when I was married. I do have happy memories of childhood - it was just
eat and play.'
All that ended when it was decided she would marry a boy,
who until the day of their wedding, she had never met.
'I didn't know him,' she says. 'I was OK when I saw him - he
was a child like me. He was upset as well, the same like me... he was 16 years
old.'
Now 38 and living in London, she says she still feels angry
with her parents at times and says her life was 'ruined' by her early marriage.
'My parents and his parents decided [on the marriage],' she
adds. 'I didn't choose.'
Before the subject of marriage was raised, Alemtsahye
remembers a happy childhood in Ethiopia's northern Tigris province.
As Alemtsahye's story reveals, girls aren't the only victims
of forced marriages, although as Jacqui Hunt, London Director of campaigning
charity Equality Now makes clear, their experience is often far more traumatic.
'Boys do get married young and that is an issue that needs
to be addressed,' she explains. 'But the majority of child marriages involve
girls.
'Also, boys tend to marry girls same age or younger while
girls marry much older men. Boys also aren't taken out of education while girls
run the risk of early childbirth and all the complications that brings.'
While Alemtsahye was, at least, given a husband closer to
her own age, the wedding meant leaving home, leaving school and beginning life
as a traditional Ethiopian wife.
'I was collecting water, wood and cooking for my husband and
the days were like that,' she remembers.
'The water was far away and not near to our house. We would
go far, then come back and I would cook for my husband.'
By the time she was 13, Alemtsahye, although still a child
herself, had a baby son, Tefsalen, now 25, to care for as well.
She remembers the pregnancy and birth as a traumatic time,
made worse by the fact that her immature body couldn't cope with the physical
demands of carrying a baby.
'When I was pregnant, it was painful and I cried,' she
recalls. 'And also when the baby was delivered it was so painful because I was
a child.'
But if pregnancy was difficult, motherhood was even tougher
and made worse by the fact that in 1989, Ethiopia was in the throes of a
vicious civil war.
The conflict, which raged intermittently from 1974 until
1991, eventually left more than 1.4 million dead, among them, Alemtsahye's
young husband who was just 19 when he was killed fighting with rebel forces to
overthrow Ethiopia's barbarous Marxist dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam.
'After the baby was born, there was a very bad war, and my
husband, they took him, and he was 19 years old and he was dead in the war,'
she says, her English slightly halting as she remembers.
'I was a widow at 13 and when [my husband] left me, he left
me with a one-year-old baby. It was very hard. Very difficult for me left
behind with a baby and still a baby myself.'
And although she hadn't wanted to marry her husband,
Alemtsahye says she still feels sad when she thinks of his short life and how
little enjoyment he had.
'I feel sorry for him because he did not enjoy his life,'
she says. 'He married young and finished in a war that ended his life. When I
see his son, I sometimes cry.'
Left alone with only her son, Alemtsahye was left vulnerable
and soon fell into the hands of traffickers, tempted by promises of a better
life abroad.
Leaving her son with her mother, she travelled to Egypt
where she worked as an unpaid domestic servant.
But just two months after arriving, more traffickers
appeared - this time promising her a new life in the UK.
'I was smuggled to London by Arab people,' she explains.
'They said: "you are working with us and we will take you to London".
They brought me and then they left me here.'
Still just 16-years-old, the former child bride was now an
asylum seeker, initially placed with a foster family because of her youth but
swiftly moved to a tiny flat of her own.
She went back to school and learned English and now helps to
run a charity called Girls Not Brides which aims to help former child brides
from Ethiopia.
Her son, now 25, lives in the Ethiopian capital, Addis
Ababa, and grew up with his grandparents, only seeing his mother during her
occasional visits home.
'It was so hard, very difficult,' she says frankly. 'I was
thinking how to bring him to live with me [in London] but I can't bring him now
because he's in his 20s. I tried last year and they said no.'
Did she ever worry that her parents might try to marry him
off at a young age as well? If they had, says Alemtsahye, she would have found
a way to stop the wedding.
'I told him: "Never ever think to marry young! I wanted
him to get educated so I said to him: "look at me, I am your mother, look
at everything that messed up my life!"'
'He is a carpenter,' she adds. 'I am very proud of him now!'
Although Alemtsahye's story has a happy ending, she's aware
that the problem of child marriage shows no signs of going away and, if WHO
estimates prove correct, could become increasingly widespread over the next
five years.
'I would say to girls, don't marry. Enjoy your childhood and
go to school - learn. For me, I feel my childhood was robbed. I missed my
education - I ended up empty - with nothing! I learned everything in London.'
And for the parents of those girls, her message is stronger
still. 'Why do you damage his or her life?' she asks.
'Send them to school to study. Do you know the problems that
come with marrying off a child so young? They will miss their childhood.'
For more information on child brides and Alemtsahye's
efforts to help them, see girlsnotbrides.org
Shocking though it might seem, her experience is by no means
unique. According to World Health Organisation figures, 14.2 million girls
under the age of 15 are forced into marriage each year.
Most come from India, the Middle East, and like Alemtsahye
herself, from sub-Saharan Africa - Niger, Chad, the Central African Republic
and Ethiopia among them.
The consequences are appalling. Along with an education and
childhood cut short, girls suffer a traumatic initiation into sexual
relationships, are put at risk of domestic violence and STI's, and have the
chance of a career or better life taken away.
CHILD MARRIAGE: THE
FACTS
One third of the world’s girls are married before the age of
18
One in nine are married before the age of 15.
If present trends continue, 142 million girls will be
married before their 18th birthday over the next decade. That’s an average of
14.2 million girls each year
Girls living in poor households are almost twice as likely
to marry before 18 than girls in higher income households.
Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in
childbirth than women in their 20s.
Pregnancy is the leading cause of death worldwide for girls
ages 15 to 19.
Child brides face a higher risk of contracting HIV because
they often marry an older man with more sexual experience.
Girls aged between 15 and19 are two to six times more likely
to contract HIV than boys of the same age in sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: International Centre for Research on Women
CHILD BRIDE HOTSPOTS: COUNTRIES WITH WORST RECORD OF FORCING
EARLY MARRIAGE
1. Niger
2. Chad
3. Central African Republic
4. Bangladesh
5. Guinea
6. Mozambique
7. Mali
8. Burkina Faso
9. South Sudan
10. Malawi
11. Madagascar
12. Eritrea
13. India
14. Somalia
15. Sierra Leone
16. Zambia
17. Dominican Republic
18. Ethiopia
19. Nepal
20. Nicaragua
Source: UNICEF
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