Why #ItTakesUsAllKE to End Violence Against Children
PICTURE THIS: At the age of 15 your parents have already negotiated your bride price. You’re still in school thinking about books & your dreams in life. Then one evening during the school holidays, you are invited to a room by a few elderly women who came to ‘visit your parents’
Not knowing their plan you cheerfully respond to the call. Only to be forced to what they call ‘our tradition’ — female circumcision. As you’re busy nursing wounds with many unanswered questions on why they subjected you to such excruciating pain, your father drops a bombshell!
Your in laws are here for you. You start wondering when the agreement happened? Who is this husband that never approached you? Does he know you are in school? So what happens to your education? With teary eyes you look at your parents hopefully that they’ll change their decision.
Only for your father to comfortably dismiss girls education as worthless & confess that he’s already received your bride price. Tears start rolling down your cheeks & in a faint-hearted spirit you accompany your ‘husband’ & in-laws to your new home.
At the age of 15, you are now a wife, & within no time — pregnancy creeps in! Bye EDUCATION & DREAMS, welcome WIFE & MOTHERLY duties. Your new name tags are — School dropout-child bride-teen mom- uneducated & finally, a child marriage STATISTIC!
DID YOU KNOW:1 in 4 girls in Kenya is married before age 18? Child marriage is any formal/informal marriage union where 1/both parties are under 18yrs. It’s a form of child abuse & a gross violation of children’s right. This is why it’ll #ItTakesUsAllKE to end such violence against children.
Follow this link to sign up for #ItTakesUsAllKE campaign
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