. Longwe

By MILDRED KATONGO –
High bride price that parents have been charging has a negative effect on the marital stability and contributes to the rise in child marriages and violence against women and girls.
Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Council  (NGOCC) chairperson Sara Longwe said the organisation was concerned about the commercialisation of the bride price which she described as de-humanising to women and girls who were treated as commodities and sex objects.
Ms Longwe said in a statement that the organisation had noted that some families were using lobola as a way of making capital and making women and girls as commodities for sale.
“The high lobola fee being charged is considered as a price paid for the transfer of a woman’s sexual and economic rights to her husband
and his family. It is such practices that have led to the misconception that paying lobola condemns women into commodities that would be abused by men,” she said.
Ms Longwe said the NGOCC had noted the ongoing debate that engrossed the country on whether the Government should regulate or abolish the payment of bride price and that the act was a tradition that defined how people celebrated the marriage rite.
She appealed to the Ministry of Chiefs and Traditional Affairs, working with traditional leaders as custodians of the customs, to guide the country on how to positively establish a marriage contract between two families without destroying the wellbeing of the couple thereafter.
Ms Longwe said there was also need to sensitise communities that the payment of lobola should not place women into slavery.
She said a human life was priceless and, therefore, society should be made to understand that women and girls should never be made commodities for sale to the highest lobola bidder.
“Marriage should respect human rights, integrity and dignity of both women and men,” Ms Longwe said.