The Marriage Terminator

Senior Chief Theresa Kachindamoto (2)

           Theresa Kachindamoto, Senior Chief in the Dezda District in Central Malawi, is a woman warrior to all, but more importantly the young women of Malawi. She is well known for dissolving child marriages and focusing on education for young boys and girls. Theresa is the youngest of twelve siblings in a family of traditional rulers of the Dezda District. She married and became the mother of five boys. She worked for twenty-seven years as a secretary at a college in the Zomba District until being called home in 2003 to her current position as Senior Chief. She had been chosen to lead 900,000 people in her district and continue to represent her family (2).

Malawi Country Map (2)

          Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa. Lake Malawi covers around a third of the country, in which the Dezda District is located at the southern tip of, at Monkey Bay (2). Malawi is among the world's least developed countries with its economy focused on agriculture and relies heavily on outside aid. This is a large factor in the countries history of childhood marriages. Half of the population lives below the poverty line continuing the culture of childhood marriages to ease a family's financial burdens. A dowery, a transfer of goods for the marriage of a daughter, is done throughout the country as a way of making ends meet. This in turn takes a young girl away from home too soon and out of the school system. When Theresa came home to become Chief, she was disturbed by the amount of young girls she saw with babies on their hips. She began by raising the legal age to marry to 18, but parental consent was still being used as a loophole. She ordered fifty of her sub-chiefs to sign an agreement to end child marriages in the Dezda District. When four sub-chiefs continued to allow for child marriages to occur, she suspended them until those marriages were annulled. With this she also annulled all previous marriages of girls who were considered to be underage. She is now pushing for the legal age to be married to once again be raised to age twenty-one this time. Over the past three years, she has annulled over eight hundred and fifty childhood marriages (3). Child marriage is one of the biggest factors holding girls back around the world in a large number of underdeveloped countries. When young girls are pulled from the education systems early on, their opportunities are limited within society thus limiting their potential. This has been seen as an issue for the community and country as a whole since in hurts economic growth, another factor in Malawi. A study done by the United Nations in 2012, showed that over half of the girls in Malawi are married before their eighteenth birthday (4). Annulling the marriages in the Dezda District was only the start of Theresa's goal in her new position.

Chief Kachindamoto with children of her District (3)

          Education for young girls was not being accomplished in the Dezda District. Childhood marriages were keeping young girls from finishing their schooling. They were being pulled out of school to be married off and also beginning families at a much younger age limiting their potential. After annulling the marriages, they were to be sent back to school. She pushed for families to understand that if they educate their daughters, they will have more in the future rather than trading them for a dowery. She has instilled a secret network of mothers to help her ensure that children are attending school. When a family cannot afford to pay for school fees, she finds a way to help them either through donors or by paying them herself. Chief Kachindamoto insisted that, "They must go to school. No child should be found at home or doing household chores during school time" (4). Here you can see how dedicated she has been to her community as a whole in its children and their futures (1).

Chief Kachindamoto representing her fight
for abolishing sexual initiation (2)

          Chief Theresa Kachindamoto has abolished childhood marriages and is continuing to ensure that children are receiving an education and now she is now focused on abolishing sexual initiation. Girls as young as seven years old are sent off to camps to learn how to please their future husbands. Ceremonies have been known to include sexual dances, acts and even having sex with their teacher to complete their sexual initiation. This can even escalate further to the parents hiring a male community member to take their daughter's virginity to prove what she has learned. She has threaten to dismiss sub-chiefs for approving of this. Along with this, she is trying to prevent the spread of HIV. One of ten people is positive for HIV in Malawi (2). Girls are put at a high risk of contracting the disease with sexual initiation especially at a young age.

      Chief Theresa Kachindamoto has created a lot of change for young girls of the Dezda District since 2003 and continues this as well. She is pushing for not only Women's Rights, but also the Rights of young girls. She has received pushback from parents and community members, even receiving death threats for her efforts, but she has not and will not stop pushing her district to be better. She has changed laws and minds of her community and believes in the future of their young females (2).

1. “Ending Child Marriages in Malawi.” YouTube, YouTube, 25 May 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8roblU_UchA.

2. “Meet the Brave Female Chief Who Stopped 850 Child Marriages in Malawi.” Global Citizen, www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/malawi-chief-woman-ends-sex-initiation-and-child-m/.

3. Ph. “Theresa Kachindamoto: How This Female Chief Broke Up 850 Child Marriages In Malawi.” How Africa News, 21 Sept. 2018, howafrica.com/theresa-kachindamoto-how-this-female-chief-broke-up-850-child-marriages-in-malawi/.

4. Ruiz-Grossman, Sarah. “How This Female Chief Broke Up 850 Child Marriages In Malawi.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 1 Apr. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/woman-chief-breaks-up-850-child-marriages-in-malawi_us_56fd51c2e4b0a06d580510da.