Guinea-Bissau: Standing up to child marriage

When Fatima[1], 16, was told she had to live with her aunt, a two-hour drive away, her mother reassured Fatima that she could continue school. “I was in Grade 7,” says Fatima, who has 10 brothers and sisters. “I was doing well at school, I never failed an exam, and wanted to continue with my education.”

Yet when Fatima arrived at her aunt’s home in a rural village in the southern region of Tombali, her aunt told Fatima she had to drop out of school and marry her uncle. “I said nothing,” says Fatima quietly, covering her mouth with her hands.

For four months, Fatima spent her days doing all the household chores, including fetching water, fishing, cooking and cleaning. “There were no other children in the house,” she says. “I knew I couldn’t stay there married to my uncle.” So Fatima befriended a girl in the village and as soon as she had the opportunity she told her friend to report her uncle to the police.

[1] Not her real name to protect her identity

In Guinea-Bissau, 26 per cent of women aged 20–24 report having been married or in a union before the age of 18.[1] While the country has committed to ending child marriages, the legal minimum age for marriage for girls is still low at 16 years compared to boys at 18 years.

Initiatives to end child marriages have stepped up in the country. For example, a local consortium of organizations[2] is implementing interventions with UNICEF support across the eastern regions of Bafata and Gabu, the two regions with the highest proportion of girls out of school, many of whom end up in forced marriages. Various awareness activities are implemented in the community and centres for children who have dropped out of school and wish to return to education. Community activists participate in monthly dialogues, known locally as djumbais, which are led by community and religious leaders and are attended by all ages in the communities, including adolescents who in turn sensitize their peers about the importance of staying in school and reporting any cases of forced marriage.

_{[1] MICS, 2019}

_{[2] The consortium  has the following organizations – the Guinean Organization for Development (OGD), the National Action for Development (ANADEC) and the Network to Combat Gender and  Child-Based Violence (RENLUV), and is funded by  the UNICEF French National Committee.}

Gibril Bodjam, the facilitator from the Network to Combat Gender and  Child-Based Violence (RENLUV) in the Northern region of Gabu, attends a djumbais in the village of Fulamansa, in the late afternoon as the sun goes down. The village chief, community administrators and religious leaders sit under the shade of the trees animatedly discussing issues while youth and adolescents sit listening. Village elder, Djenabu Embalo, who is responsible for ‘Women’s Affairs’ in the village, is emphatic. “Forced marriage just brings misery to the home. It can end in violence.” The elders all agree.

Bodjam explains, “Culturally it is not easy for the adolescents to talk directly to the elders, but they listen and discuss the issues among themselves and later an older person can bring the adolescents’ views at the next meeting. “Changing attitudes about forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) (which often go hand in hand) has been a gradual process over the years,” Bodjam says. (Among girls aged 0-14 years, 30 per cent have undergone FGM). “But I think now around 90 per cent of this community are against such practices.” 

However, nationwide the child protection system is under-resourced and has few trained social welfare workers to carry out prevention activities and provide identification and referral services, particularly in rural areas. UNICEF Guinea-Bissau head of Child Protection, Sonia Polonio, explains that UNICEF is supporting the government Institute of the Woman and Child (IMC) in developing a national case management system ­– with standard operating procedures compliant with national legislation and international standards. “This includes improved training resources that will be tested this year, to guarantee a harmonized and coordinated intervention on the prevention, referral, and management of child protection cases, especially in rural areas,” says Polonio.”

Anecdotal stories suggest that cases of child marriage are increasingly being reported to the police and acted upon. For example, after Fatima’s friend reported her uncle to the police, the police brought Fatima to a temporary shelter on the outskirts of the capital, Bissau, which is run by the Associação dos Amigos das Crianças (AMIC). She has been at the shelter for one month along with another girl who was about to be forced into a marriage.

Encircled by a high wall and guarded by security, the centre is a peaceful haven for children who have suffered violence. Fatima says she enjoys playing on the bright-coloured swings, playing board games and watching a Mexican TV series which is dubbed into the national language, Portuguese. “I like the TV programme as it is a happy story about a family,” she says.

The shelter, which has received support from UNICEF and other partners, is only a temporary stop for children who have been abused. The children are either reunited with family if it is safe to do so or placed with alternative foster families. The staff at the centre make follow-up visits to the homes where the children have been placed every two weeks to check that they are being well treated. Carina Da Silva, the psychologist at the centre, says most of the girls she counsels are cases of child marriage, and in such cases they sometimes have to find alternative homes for them. She has counselled Fatima. “At first she kept crying, especially when she remembered her time with her uncle,” she says.

Fatima twists her hands in her lap and does not look up much during the interview, although she does so when school is mentioned. She says she hopes to return to her studies as soon as she can. “My favourite subjects are maths and physics and I want to be a doctor,” she says.