By Mathew Kanu in Makeni
A 16-year old Senior Secondary School pupil in Makeni (name withheld) has defied her father in his attempt to force her into marriage at that tender age. The visibly shaken girl, although sounding composed, told Politico that she wanted to complete high school and go to college but now had to offend her father who was determined “to destroy my future and ambition to become a nurse.” “I want to be educated and help my mother who is suffering and struggling to train me and my kid brothers. She gets little support from my father who only wants me to get married to his friend,” she explained. She said that she was happy that the Family Support Unit of the police, civil society groups and the human rights commission had intervened to save me,” she said. She expressed surprise at her father’s determination to “dump” her to a man she did not know and had never met in her life. “Besides I am still young to marry a man who has many children and wives who are older than I am,” she lamented. The father, Salieu Turay, 60, told Politico that he could no longer afford to pay his daughter’s school fees and had no money to support his eight other children. “My second daughter got married at an early age and when she was in junior secondary school. This is my third child” he said, adding that “besides the man who wants to marry her has promised to keep her in school. If I had support to keep her in school I would not allow her to marry at this age but I am poor and I don’t have money”. Regional Coordinator of FSU, Esther Kamara, said early marriage was common in the northern region of the country and was becoming a major cause for school dropouts. “If every girl child is sent into early marriage, who will replace us when we get old,” she asked, adding that the issue was serious and therefore being investigated for possible court action. She promised that they would set a precedent that would never allow any parent to think of sending their girl child into early marriage. Madam Kamara warned that the girl must not be subjected to any form of intimidation or degrading human treatment because it was her right to be educated, which must not be denied her by her father. Senior human rights officer at the Human Rights Commission north, Yola Bangura, said sending a girl into early marriage was a human rights abuse that must not be encouraged. “This we must not allow to happen here in a big city like Makeni. Not even in the village” he said, adding that a lot of sensitisation by civil society and humans rights organisations had already taken place on the issue of early marriage. Bangura said if the father did not change his mind to send the girl back to school the commission would recommend that he face the full force of the law. “Whatever happens to this girl we will monitor her progress and any information we receive to the contrary we will act accordingly,” he promised. The region’s coordinator for Women Action For Human Dignity, Ramatu Forna, said that it was the business of civil society to ensure that nobody denied the right of the girl to education. She said the act of forceful marriage was “outdated and barbaric” and did not have a place in the twenty first century. © Politico 16/10/13
