Drought Brides

Child 'Drought Brides' Sold Secretly in Kenya

By REUTERS

HABASWEIN, Kenya (TrustLaw) - "It's done in the dark," said Fatuma Ahmed, squatting inside her makeshift stick shelter.

"Some people sell their daughters at a tender age so they can get food. It's common but people are silent about it."

Prolonged drought in northern Kenya has pushed many families, like widow Ahmed and her seven children, toward the outskirts of towns where they are more likely to get food and water.

Aid is in short supply and people are resorting to desperate strategies. It's illegal to marry under the age of 18 in Kenya -- so the phenomenon of "drought brides" is only whispered about.

Child marriage is not unusual is this part of the world.

Many pastoralist communities, like Somalis in Habaswein, believe it is important to marry their girls off when they are young so that their honor, or virginity, is preserved.

Women who do not marry young are seen as flawed and a burden on their family.

"In our culture, girls marry as young as nine," said one local community health worker. "She is forced to marry someone when she is not willing. They are forced by their parents."

Among pastoralist communities, a "dowry," in this case a bride price, is traditionally given to the bride's family in the form of livestock.

"People marry when they have a dowry to pay and everything is in plenty," said Abdi Issak, a local aid worker.

"When it is green, the animals can drink from the water pans. You see it in the faces of the people. Their faces shine because they get enough food in their homes."

But most of the animals have died due to the drought that has affected around 10 million people in the Horn of Africa. The animals' carcasses litter the desert landscape.

SOLD FOR $168

Now young girls are being sold, according to locals, for as little as 15,000 Kenyan shillings ($168).

"If he's wealthy, it can go up to 50,000 ($559)," said Ahmed.

Hunger drives the exchange.

"A mother will take a 14-year-old girl out of school and sell her to a man -- even an old man -- to get money to give the other children food," said a local chief. "Some households have 10 children and feeding those children is really hard."

Enrolment in his local primary school has dropped to 210 children from 350 since the drought started to bite last year.

"Over a hundred have been removed because of hunger," he said.

According to the United Nations, only one in five girls in North Eastern Province attend school.

Aid agency World Vision is unable to trace 400 of the 3,060 children it sponsors in the district. Some have been sent to stay with better-off relatives who can feed them. Some are working as maids in people's houses or in food kiosks.

But others are married off "just to make sure that the rest of the family does not die from lack of food," said Jacob Alemu, World Vision's local program manager.

(For more on child marriage, including info-graphics, videos, stories and blogs, visit http://childmarriage.trust.org)

(TrustLaw is a global news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation, covering women's legal rights, good governance and pro bono law. Visithttp://www.trust.org/trustlaw)

(Reporting by Katy Migiro; Editing by Rebekah Curtis/Emma Batha and Sonya Hepinstall)

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This article is fascinating because while child brides are not an uncommon phenomenon in a number of countries, in this particular case, these young girls are being sold for money for food, a basic necessity. Does this make the treatment of women and girls as commodities more acceptable? More palatable? The article points out that the this practice is justified by the fact that young girls frequently marry at a young age, so it is not that unusual.  To me, it seems more like a supply-demand issue. As long as men are willing to pay families for the young female children, families, often struggling to feed their other children, will supply those young female children.  Perhaps its utilitarianism in play?

I just can't accept that we must sell young girls, like we would sell a cookie, a woven basket, a shirt.  These are living, breathing young women. Who is at fault here? Is it the men purchasing these girls for $158? Is it the government not providing adequate basic needs? The families of the girls?