Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Ouagadougou (Fides Service)- “With the excuse of local customs women are forced into marriage without their consent. The story was told on Italian television by Esther Marie Judith of the Association of Women’s Rights who works at the House for girls who escape from forced marriage, run by the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in Uizia (Burkina Faso)
“You can buy a wife with a basket of cola, a drug which is chewed, or a goat. Sometimes a girl is given as a wife to make good relations between tribal chiefs. And it happens that a 12 year old child may be married off to a man as old as 60” Esther Marie Judith said. “How can a child honour mother and father when they sell her or exchange her for a goat or give her to an old man for his pleasure? These young wives are tied up to prevent them from escaping from their horrible fate. The law in Burkina punishes this custom but it is difficult to enforce the law. This is slavery and it must be fought not only for the emancipation of women but also for our nation and our continent of Africa”.
Sr. Kantyono Euphrasie a member of the Burkina Faso Association for Women’s Rights says, “the girls at our house have escaped from forced marriages entailing unspeakable suffering and insurmountable difficulties”. To confirm Sr. Euphrasie’s statement here are just a few of these painful stories, beginning with Maria, one of the many girls in Burkina Faso forced into marriage: “My parents gave me to an aunt who fixed a marriage for me when I was only 10. When I was 15 I was given to another husband in Ivory Coast. I managed to escape and go back to my village but my parent refused to take me in so I lived in hiding for a month and then they found me. I was beaten and sent back to my first husband, but he was ill and he did not want me any more. He kept me in his house and who knows where he would have sent me perhaps to Ivory Coast. At catechism one day a girl told me about the Sisters and she helped me to escape at night through the bush. Now I am here at the Sisters’ centre. But my husbands came looking for me. The Sisters protected me and thanks to them I am safe. For some time now my husbands have not come looking for me, perhaps because they known that the Sisters have had recourse to the law to protect me”.
Here is the story of another girl in Burkina Faso forced into marriage, her name is Gladys: “I was given to a man who was much older than me and whom I had never seen before. He had a number of wives who were very unkind to me...I had to work harder than all of them. I ran away to the Sisters, but the man sent people to fetch me and I was forced to marry him. I escaped again and they will never succeed in making me go back.
“I was 19 when my father gave me to a man who was old and unwell but how could I love him he was a total stranger! My life was miserable, one violence after the other” says Thérèse, another girl at the Centre. “I was not shown love or tenderness only violence and all I wanted to do was get away...today I am here and now I know what it means to be loved and respected!» Zalissa tells the most painful story: “It was terrible, the mutilation performed on girls is so painful and humiliating. When I was little I saw what they did to women and how they suffered. I cried all through the wedding I wanted to run away or die. I found the courage to run and I escaped from the man to whom they sold me. I hope none of my friends will ever have this experience because mutilation is the most terrifying and humiliating experience”. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 14/7/2004 righe 46 parole 654)
