The invisible consequences of natural disasters: an increase in children's marriages

As if the devastation by this year's cyclone Freddy hadn't been enough, Marry Harrison's parents also had to make a terrible decision.

The family was among the almost 700,000 people who became homeless in Malawi due to the most durable tropical vertebral storm of ever, and had no food or money.

When her despair after food, the Harrison was forced to take extreme measures into consideration-the marriage of her 15-year-old daughter.

"My parents felt that they would not be able to cope with the situation and sought a man for me that I could marry for food and financial support while reducing the number of children to be looked after at the same time," she recalls reputable. "Unfortunately you made the wrong choice."

She has the feeling that her parents' decision of becoming her dreams of becoming her dreams of becoming nurse and in a life of earlier domestic dusk and possibly involved in early motherhood.

"I feel bad when I see how my classmates go to school while going to the fields to do agriculture," she told the Telegraph.

"I can't even imagine getting children at this age. Sometimes I have the feeling that it would be better to do without the floods than the current situation in which I got through the disaster."

A visit to evacuation camps in the districts of NSANJE and Chikwawa in southern Malawis shows that Marry's predicament is not unusual.

Mary Namalomba, the director of the Women's Rights Organization Kutchena, who works in the region, says that the cyclone has contributed to the high rate of forced marriages and pregnancies of girls in the district.

Malawi passed a law on the ban on child marriage in 2015, but practice is still widespread.

Mrs. Namalomba says her organization had pulled more than 300 girls out of early marriages and sent them back to school.

"Almost all of these girls were married for hunger and lack of basic needs, but we excluded them from their marriages because it is a violation of human rights."

It has long been known that environmental crises such as floods and droughts lead to children's marriages among the poorest in the world. The marriage of a daughter can mean one mouth less to feed and in many cultures the groom pays a bridal price of his family.

"Marriage to a child is considered a coping strategy in response to loss of assets and income after crises such as droughts and floods," says the United Nations Population Fund.

The prevalence of children's marriages is also higher in people who have been forced to leave their houses and live in refugee camps.

If weather conditions change to more extreme floods, droughts, storms and agricultural problems due to climate change, more families will be under economic stress.

"Health and economic crises, escalating conflicts and the devastating effects of climate change force families to seek a false feeling of refuge in children's marriage," said the executive director of Unicef, Catherine Russell, in May.

Even young girls of teenage in the Evacuation camps Malawis hardly have any other alternatives than sex for money and food.

"Here people are hungry"

"Since we are hungry and in basic things such as women's bandages, soap and clothing, many of the girls accept such conditions to get help. But they will be pregnant or risk to infect with HIV and AIDS," said Aisha, a 13-year-old refugee in the NSANJE.

Richard Malunga, the victim's supervisor in the camp, added: "The fact is that people are hungry here ... they have nothing to live because they have lost everything from the floods."

"The government last supplied it with food in May. Many have to get involved in transactional sex to find food or other basic needs."

The UN say that girls who marry early have to expect lifelong consequences. It is less likely to go to school and there is an increased risk of early pregnancy, which can lead to health complications for mothers and babies.

dr. Dorothy NGOMA, an expert in reproductive health and advisor to the President of Mothers Health, said: "Since her bodies are not yet fully mature to give birth to a child, there is a high risk of suffering from complications such as fistula, heavy bleeding or birth by caesarean section." Section that is more expensive for the government than the normal procedure. ”

An example is Thokozani Mereka, a 17-year-old girl with a three-month-old baby.

"A normal child was not possible and I had a caesarean section that was also hard," she said.

"I stayed in the hospital for a month because my wound could not be treated. Now I'm outside, but I still have severe pain."

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