By STEPHEN KAPAMBWE –

“We want our children to be educated and any reports that under-age girls are being married off would be probed and parents found responsible would be dealt with decisively.”
This was a  stark warning from Senior Chief Kasempa to all parents in his chiefdom. The traditional leader is sparing no effort to stop parents from marrying off their school going daughters.
Addressing Barrick Lumwana Mining Company officials who handed over a laboratory to Mukinge Girls Secondary School in Kasempa recently, the traditional leader said he would personally carry out regular inspections throughout his chiefdom to ensure children were being sent to school.
He expressed displeasure at reports that some parents in his chiefdom were marrying off young girls. He said the Kasempa Royal Establishment will mete out stiff punishment on parents found wanting.
Senior Chief Kasempa is not the only traditional ruler waging war against early marriages which condemn many underage girls to a life of ignorance, abuse, gender based violence (GBV) and the severe complications arising from childbirth which could even cause death.
Chief Kalasa Lukangaba is equally on the war path. Chief Lukangaba recently warned parents and guardians engaged in marrying off girls below the age of 18, that they risked being punished once found guilty.
The traditional ruler is totally against early marriages and wants none of his subjects to perpetuate the vice. He has directed village headmen to look out for culprits and report to him as well as law enforcement agencies.
The chief has gone as far as summoning families that have been found wanting to explain their actions. He believes marrying off girls is detrimental to national development.
This is not far from the truth. The medical profession has adequately spelt out dangers related to early marriages. People now know that immature girls take great risk to nurture pregnancies. For such girls, childbirth is a considerable risk that could easily result in fatality because their bodies are not fully developed to bear the pressure of pregnancy let alone withstand childbirth.
But this information has had little effect on the high prevalence of girls being married off in the countryside largely on account of poverty and ignorance which make families see bride price and marriage to be more beneficial than the education of the girls.
As Chief Lukangaba warned, there is a more sinister danger that threatens Zambia if early marriages go unchecked.
Announcing the 2015 budget to Parliament last year, Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda said, “Zambia has a very young population… with over 53 per cent of the population below the age of 18 years.”
The minister said 90 per cent of the population in Zambia is below the age of 45 years.
“Being a country of predominantly young people, Zambia can yield a demographic dividend if our youth are equipped with skills and meaningfully involved and deployed in the various productive sectors of the economy,” he said.
This forms the basis of Government’s investment in infrastructure like building of additional student accommodation at UNZA, the Copperbelt University (CBU), Mulungushi University and Evelyn Hone College; and to continue construction of the new universities like Paul Mushindo, Chalimbana and Palabana.
But failure to take advantage of the demographic dividend that the country’s youthful population offers, especially failure to educate girls – particularly as a result of early marriages – threatens to cripple the country’s future development aspirations.
In December last year, Zambia hosted the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) bi-annual conference on youth employment where University of California Professor Louise Fox warned that African countries like Zambia risk having uneducated and subsequently more unemployed young people as a result of society’s failure to stop early marriages.
Professor Fox said because of early marriages which push girls out of school, the girls not only fail to develop cognitive and behavioral strengths they need in adult hood to navigate the challenges of life, including those related to a sustainable livelihood, but  also fail to pass on such skills to the next generation – their children.
She said the problem of early marriages and early childbirth pose a big challenge for young African females.
“For young women, the pathway from school to work can be especially treacherous. As they navigate the school-to-work transition, they may encounter social norms that limit their agency and their employment choices.
“For females, the school to work transition is particularly challenging as it occurs at the same time as family formation,” she said.
Professor Fox described the problem of early marriages in terms of the impact on girls’ acquisition of cognitive skills (like numeracy and literacy) as very serious.
She quoted a report by the Population Council that said in Africa, ‘adolescence is a time of widening opportunities for boys, but constricting (narrowing) opportunities for girls.’
‘By the age of 25, nearly 80 per cent of women in Africa have married and given birth.  This transition happens later among men. While more than half of all women are married by the age of 20, the majority of men are likely to remain unmarried before the age of 25, and marry only in their late twenties or early thirties,’ read the report.
The academician described as “very serious” the education problem for girls in terms of the loss of cognitive skills and society’s failure to allow them to use their adolescence to widen their opportunities.
She said adolescence should constitute learning about the world and how to respond to opportunities. But in the African scenario, this is when most of the girls drop out of school.
As a result, the girls do not build up their cognitive skills and because of that, they may equally fail to pass on such skills to the next generation. She warned that for African females, interventions to adequately get them educated should start before onset of fertility so that those targeted make choices which open opportunities for their own development.
“This will have a major long term payoff for society as it will lead to higher human capital in the young women’s generation and help improve reproductive outcomes in future generations,” she said.
Failure to take preventive measures means the girls that are being pulled out of school and married off,  will become uneducated motherswho will not realise the importance of educating their children. The uneducated children will add to the problem of youth unemployment because they will not possess the necessary skills that would enable them get employed.
According to Girls Not Brides, Zambia has one of the highest child marriage rates in the world. 42 per cent of young women aged 20-24 years married by the age of 18.
This rate has not changed since 2002. The rates of early marriage vary from one region to another, and are as high as 60 per cent in Eastern Province.
Girls Not Brides believes girls who are affected by poverty, lack of education and longstanding traditional patriarchal practices that discriminate against the education of females, are most vulnerable to early marriages.
For example, the United Nations  Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) found that 65per cent of women aged 20-24 with no education and 58 per cent of the women with primary education were married at the age of 18 compared to only 17 per cent of women with secondary education or higher.
In 2013, the Government launched a nationwide campaign to end early marriages. The campaign was spearheaded by the Ministry of Chiefs and Traditional Affairs which organised traditional leaders around the country who normally preside over affairs of chiefdoms that are mostly patriarchal.
The campaign sought to draw attention to the dangers of early marriages and to encourage communities to delay marriage for their daughters.
The launch of the campaign was followed by a symposium that drew key stakeholders – among them; various ministries, traditional leaders, civil society organisations, young people, media institutions and United Nations (UN) agencies – to explore ways to collaborate efforts towards arresting the practice of early marriages.
The Government’s interventions won global acclaim. But in spite of the progress made, more effort is required to bring early marriages to an end. Senior Chief Kasempa and Chief Lukangaba have rightly noted that although the prevalence of early marriages could mean little in the  light of current demographics, the effect on posterity could be more telling than previously thought.