Parents deviation from taking responsibility when a girl child is pregnant has left many adolescent girls hopeless, opting for marriage at an early age despite smelling there future doomed at the end of the tunnel.
Aisha Umali found solace to keep staying in her parents home while pregnant.The outskirts of rural Ntchisi district, pregnancy is a reason enough for a parent to chase their daughter away from home even though she would insist to go back to school upon delivering the baby.
Gone are the days when pregnancy is an excuse for an adolescent young girl to be a bride as Aisha is among other young girls who have been granted freedom to exercise their own will in the district.
In the meantime, Aisha is 7 months old pregnant and she is planning to resume her studies next year at Chatinkha primary school where she dropped out in standard 6 upon getting impregnated by her childhood lover.
She is only 16 and she thinks her parents support played a very crucial role in making marriage wait for her.
Every morning she wakes up to find her parents have gone to the garden, and the norm is to wash dishes before taking time to rewind her memory by reading notebooks.She is eager to make them proud because they never despised her in moment like this.
‘They stand with me even though my in-laws have been coming to convince them to do otherwise they were not shaken and most of all the society expected to see me out of their home because am pregnant.’
Aisha used to run when the in laws come to pick her and she further revealed that though she might not be welcomed as before by friends and all places she is happy to find peace at home.
‘People mock me and the friends I had now are no where to be seen; they don’t visit me at all, so I just find it hard to go out from home to school in this state.’
Amongst all odds, Aisha never lost her self esteem once and for all, she wrote exams in standard 6 while pregnant and she had to give herself a break upon becoming number 65, backsliding from number 16 in the previous term.
However, struggling with high self esteem is a whole lot of challenge many girls like Aisha are facing.Through mother groups Umunthuplus is targeting parents of impregnated adolescent girls to refrain from marrying a girl child off at a young age.
So far about 43 adolescent young girls ranging from the ages of 12 to 18 have made up their mind to return back to school after giving birth.
And though,18 years is the set minimum age for marriage in Malawi, almost 47% of girls are married before they turn 18 and 9% become child brides before their 15th birthday hence the need to upscale our efforts in reaching out to a large population.
