By MIRIAM ZIMBA –
UNDER ordinary circumstances, she deserves an award for her perseverance with her education.
Mary Chasunkwa, a 13-year-old Grade Six pupil at Chisakila Primary School, in the remote parts of Kafue District, walks about 18 kilometres to and from school everyday.
Many of her peers have either opted out of school due to teenage pregnancies or for early marriages.
She lives at the far end of Kafue’s Kambale Ward, and although she is not fully decided on a career path she wants to pursue after school, young Mary is determined to complete her education.
“I want to complete school so that I can also live and work in Lusaka one day. Not many of my friends finish school here, but I want to finish school and live in Lusaka,” Mary narrates.
It is hard to imagine that not too far away from the capital City of Lusaka young girls who become pregnant in their teens are being married off, because their parents have no financial capacity to sustain them, let alone their babies.
From the outside, it is easy to point an accusing finger at these young girls, who have no social amenities, leaving them with no option but to engage in risky sexual behaviour that expose them to early pregnancies, HIV and STI’s.
But the reality on the ground for most inhabitants in this area is that the nearest school-Chisakila is so far away from most settlements.
This means, the Government recommended age for Grade One enrollment at seven years does not apply to them.
The explanation is simple – a seven-year-old child cannot walk distances of 18 kilometres and beyond to and from school every day.
Most children in the area begin school at about the ages of 10 and 11 years, and the lucky ones who are not swayed into marriage reach Grade Seven by the age of 16 to 17 years.
By this time, the young teens are already sexually attracted to one another, and because of lack of comprehensive sexuality education awareness, many of these relationships result in teenage pregnancies.
Kafue District Commissioner Grace Ngulube attests to the fact that children in the area begin school at about 10 or 11 years due to long walking distances that younger children cannot contain.
Ms Ngulube said because most of the children at the school are in their adolescence stage, when they fall pregnant, they are married off at tender ages.
Although Chisakila Primary School recorded a 100 per cent pass rate at Grade Seven in 2013, head-teacher Songolo Amusaa is worried about the high rate of pregnancies at his school which has a total population of 267 pupils.
Many of these girls fail to proceed to secondary school education due to teenage pregnancies and early marriages.
Mr Amusaa described the high rate of pregnancies as a serious threat with potential to reverse the country’s gains towards Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) number two, on universal access to education.
According to Ms Ngulube, cases of early marriages are not the only challenges faced in the area.
She cited high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) against women, as being rife in the area.
Ms Ngulube explained that the cases of GBV have been compounded by the lack of a Police post and a health centre where victims of GBV can be assisted with medical reports in order to access justice.
“We have no Police post here, and the nearest Police station is in Kafue District which is about 200 kilometres from here, and there is also no health centre where these women and girls can be examined by medical personnel. This makes the fight against GBV an uphill battle,” she said.
She appealed to the Lusaka provincial administration to quicken the process of grading the road leading to the area, in order to pave way for the construction of both a Police post and health centre if the vice is to be fought effectively.
“Many victims of GBV have nowhere to report cases of GBV, and it has become a norm here, therefore, our women are suffering in silence, while perpetrators are enjoying their freedom, even when we receive reports the poor road network proves as a challenge for this area to be accessed,” she said.
Ms Ngulube is of the view that expediting the construction of a rural health centre at Chisakila will ensure that cases of violence against women and children in the area have medical reports to back them prior to reporting the matter to the Police.
According to an organisation that works at promoting child protection and child rights-Save the Children, there are existing activities that the organisation implements to establish effective child protection systems and eliminate violence against children.
According to the organisation’s website, both preventative and responsive interventions are implemented and these include engaging duty bearers to safeguard children’s rights as well as children to claim their rights.
Their works have resulted in the country in having legislation which spells out the protection of children including children who commit crimes.
And according to statistics from the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), which is leading efforts to find solutions that will eliminate the harmful traditional practice of child marriage, one third of the world’s girls are married before the age of 18 and one  in nine are married before the age of 15.
In 2010, 67 million women 20-24 around the world had been married before the age of 18.
If present trends continue, 142 million girls will be married before their 18th birthday over the next decade, translating to an average of 14.2 million girls each year.
Girls living in poor households are almost twice as likely to marry before 18 years as girls in higher income households.
This is why Ms Ngulube is encouraging parents and care-givers of children in Kambale ward to ensure that children are retained in school.
This is against proven evidence that cites the education of adolescent girls, as a critical factor in increasing the age of marriage in a number of developing countries.
The United Nations International Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) defines child marriage as the percentage of women and aged between 20 to 24 years, who are married before the age of 18 years.
According to research by UNICEF, the percentage of child marriage in Zambia stands at about 42 per cent, stressing an evident requirement for the need to strengthen the domesticated human rights treaties in Zambia.
UNICEF is supporting the opening of One-Stop Centers nationwide, where victims receive comprehensive support protection from the Victim Support Unit as well as from the Child Protection Units of the Zambia Police Service to investigate and respond to cases in a child sensitive manner.
Having realised the need for strengthened legal frameworks, as well as community sensitisation on child rights, it is simple steps such as construction of a health center and Police post that will guarantee a safe and conducive environment to harness Mary Chasunkwa’s dreams of completing school and moving to Lusaka.