EARLY GIRL-CHILD MARRIAGE PRACTICES AMONG THE MOGHAMO RURAL COMMUNITIES OF CAMEROON
Abstract
The practice of early girl-child marriage continues to be widely prevalent in many parts of the world. The prevalence of the practice in different parts of the world has been attributed to a number of underpinning drivers which could be categorized as cultural, social, economic and even political. As a cultural phenomenon, early girl-child marriage is often driven by cultural belief systems, cultural norms and values systems, culture-specific socio-cultural perceptions and cultural practices native to indigenous cultures in patriarchy. This study was carried out among the rural communities of the Moghamo tribe of North West Cameroon. The aim of the study was to investigate the psychosocial and educational consequences of the practice of early girl-child marriage among the rural communities of the Moghamo tribe. The study employed a qualitative design and Key Informant Interviews and Focused Group Discussions were adopted as methods of data collection. Findings showed that early girl-child marriage practices in rural Moghamo communities are deeply entrenched in cultural belief systems, norms and values, social perceptions and cultural practices of the Moghamo people. The study found that the practice results in negative consequences to the health of the girl-child such as difficult child birth, stress, depression, trauma, physical depreciation due to hard labour, and maternal and child mortality. The study also found that the practice resulted in high rates of school drop-out, inequalities in schooling and education between boys and girls, low rates of literacy among girls in early marriages and an obstruction in the educational aspirations of the girl-child. From a socio-economic perspective, findings showed that girls in early marriages in rural Moghamo villages were more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, low social status, wife battery, husband domination, complete financial and material dependence on husband, poverty and hardship, and lack of opportunities for personal development. The study recommends that the practice be conceptualized as a crisis and that programs designed to address the rate of prevalence and bring about full decline should be sensitive to cultural specificities in driving factors across practicing indigenous cultural communities and such programs should be able to engage the stakeholders in the prevalence of the practice with the hope of transforming them from agents of its prevalence to making them agents of change.
Article visualizations:
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Adedokun, O. A., Adeyemi, G. E., & Dauda C. (2011). Child Marriage and Maternal Health Risks among Young Mothers in Gombi, Adamawa State, Nigeria: Implications for Mortality, Entitlements and Freedoms. Paper Presented at the Sixth African Population Conference, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Retrieved, July 5, 2019 from http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7baa/8dc79cde6a1de20a36be053e52a42ac21eb5.pdf
Bhattacharyya, M. (2015). Research on Early and Forced Marriage in Poor Urban Areas of Bangladesh. Final Report Submitted to UPPR Project, UNDP Bangladesh. Retrieved May 3, 2017, from imageforchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/12-mansi-bhatt.pdf.
Breakthrough (2013). The causes, consequences and resistance of early marriage in Bihar and Jharkhand. Retrieved January 5, 2017, from www.breakthrough.tv/.../1380298474Breakthrough_EarlyMarriage_FormativeResear...
Davis, A., Postles, C., & Rosa, G. (2013). A Girl’s Right to Say No to Marriage: Working to End Child Marriage and Keep Girls in School. Working: Plan International.
IPPF (2006). Community Views on Child Marriage: Findings of Participatory Assessments in Selected Regions in Bangladesh and Ethiopia. London: International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Muller, K. (2014). Early Marriages and the Perpetuation of Gender Inequality. Speculum Juris Volume 28 Part 1 (2014) Retrieved January 10, 2017, from http://specjuris.ufh.ac.za/speculum-juris-volume-28-2014
Njiei, A. F. & Asongu, N. A. (2014). Child Marriage in Rural Cameroon: The Case of Magba in the West Region. International Research Journal of Business and Management ((IRJBM), Vol. VII, pp. 50-59.
Liman, S. H. (2016). Traditional Mechanism to Eliminate Violence against Women: A Perspective from Nigeria. Journal of Islamic Studies and Culture, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 82-89.
OHCHR (1995). Fact Sheet No. 23, Harmful Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children. Retrieved March 1, 2017, from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet23en.pdf
Population Council (2011). When Girls’ Lives Matter: Ending Forced and Early Marriage in Cameroon. New York: Population Council.
UNICEF (2016). Achieving a Future without Child Marriage: Focus on West and Central Africa. New York: UNICEF.
UNICEF (2016). The State of the Word’s Children 2016: A Fair Chance for Child. New York: UNICEF.
UNFPA (2012). Marrying too young. End Child Marriage, New York: UNFPA.
UNICEF (2005). Early Marriage: A Harmful Traditional Practice. New York: UNICEF Retrieved January 25, 2017, at http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Early_Marriage_12.lo.pdf
World Vision UK (2013). Untying the Knot. Exploring Early Marriage in Fragile States. Retrieved February 9 2017 at www.worldvision.org.uk
Wetheridge, L. & Antonowicz, L. (2014). Child Marriage in West Africa and Cameroon: A Desk Review. Plan WARO. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from http://www.frauenrechte.de/online/images/downloads/fruehehen/Plan-WARO-Child-Marriage.pdf
Zakar, R. Zakar, M. Z. (2011). A primary health care physician’s response of the victims of spousal violence against women in Pakistan: Healthcare for women International 32(9), 811-32.
ICRW (2013). Asia child marriage Initiative: A summary of Research Findings from Bangladesh, India and Nepal. ICRW Publications.
UNFPA (2014). UNFPA Supplies Annual Report. (8pages)
UNFPA (2006). Annual Report 2006.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v0i0.2696
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2019 Ngoran M. B., Valentine Banfegha Ngalim
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright © 2015-2023. European Journal of Education Studies (ISSN 2501 - 1111) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library (Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei). All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All authors who send their manuscripts to this journal and whose articles are published on this journal retain full copyright of their articles. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).