TAKING CHILD MARRIAGE PERSONAL: Choma youth picks mantle to reduce Zambia's global ranking on early nuptials

WITH 42 percent of women aged between 20 and 24 years married off by the age of 18, Zambia ranks among countries with the highest child marriage rates in the world.

Currently, Zambia is ranked 16th amongst countries with the highest rate of child marriage in the world, and although the Marriage Act establishes a legal age for marriage, and the Penal Code makes sex with a girl under 16 an offence in Zambia, these provisions rarely apply in customary law.

Owing to this, early child marriage has become a vital topic of discussion amongst several development platforms, so much that the vice has now become even more visible to many people, including those that were previously unaware of its existence.

And as the local proverb goes: “One finger cannot crush a louse”. There is indeed strength in numbers.

This proverb holds true in the fight against early or forced marriage.

The future of most girls is threatened by early or forced marriage, making it a national concern, bringing many organisations and people on board, all in an effort to mitigate it – this includes 30-year-old Choma-based activist Genious Musokotwane.

I caught up with the budding youth who has decided to dedicate not only his time, but also resources, to fighting the vice and sending children, especially girls, to school.

At his young age, Mr Musokotwane is also executive director for the Musokotwane Compassion Mission Zambia (MCMZ), a Choma-based non-profit and youth-led organisation that frontiers the fight against child marriages.

Not only that, his organisation, which has on a number of occasions retrieved many girls from forced or arranged marriages in Choma and surrounding areas, has also been ensuring that it meets their needs.

“I am just a simple Zambian, life transformation servant driven leader,” is how Mr Musokotwane describes himself.

Born in Kalomo in 1992, Mr Musokotwane was raised by a single parent, a thing that motivated him to found MCMZ.

“I grew up to know that I was a solution to my community,” he says. “When my mother died when I was 10 years old, I went to live in the village and my time in the village as a young boy birthed my passion to bring about positive change.”

At the age of 14, an opportunity availed itself for him to attend a boy’s camp under Peace Corps as a volunteer.

“At the end of the camp, we were all asked to take a quiet moment and reflect on things we would love to change in our communities,” he says. “It was at this point that the early child marriage problem resurfaced. It was in the same year that the 2007 Demographic Health Survey on Zambia was released and it indicated that half of Zambian women were married before the age of 18 years.”

Out of his passion, Genious, then aged 15, engaged Chief Chikanta of Kalomo district and Chief Cooma of Choma district and shared with them his ideas on the best practices of ending early, forced and child marriages in their chiefdoms.

“It was at this point in 2008 that Musokotwane Compassion Mission Zambia (MCMZ) was founded with the sole purpose of influencing chiefdoms, traditional leaders, government and others to end child marriages and also meet basic needs of girls retrieved from such toxic unions,” he says.

Today, MCMZ is a member of the Girls Not Brides global partnership on ending child marriages worldwide. It is also an approved Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) in the republic of Zambia.

“Since inception, over 500 girls have been retrieved and put back in school under the advocacy, education and capacity building thematic areas,” says Mr Musokotwane.

His organisation has since expanded its operations into Kazungula district, adding on the other three districts, Monze, Pemba and Choma.

MCMZ is also a transit facility for survivors of child marriage. This, he says, is done in accordance with the Government's vision and aspiration to reduce the number of children raised in institutional care through the implementation of an alternative care plan where the organisation partners with a volunteer family to keep and care for any such survivor or child.

The organisation is also a trainer of trainers in organisation strategic planning, data for decision making, monitoring and evaluation and also trainer of trainers in child protection policy and disability inclusion.

It is also building classes for its formal and skills training school at its Choma farm as part of its transition into a transit centre for survivors of sexual violence and child marriage.

Asked what it was like setting up MCMZ, Mr Musokotwane says it was challenging at first, but has no regrets now.

“But I believed in myself, I understood God had called me to this and I never expected a smooth path. With this view in mind, it made everything easy. Also, Chief Chikanta and Chief Cooma supported me with what I needed and knowing that I had such traditional leaders behind me, and being called for this made the whole thing adventurous,” he says. 

“The programmes are being received very well as we have traditional leaders raising the flag to end child marriage and over five chiefs and their headmen have been trained and are now champions of ending child marriage.”

He says in rural areas, it is always important to work with traditional leaders if you want to achieve positive change.

He says child marriage has been a traditional practice that has escalated now because of poverty levels.

He recalls how while in primary school, a school mate got married off and later lost her life during child birth. Up to now, it still hurts him that his schoolmate had no one to stand up for her.

“If someone stood [up] for her not to be married off, she probably would still be alive today. This has continued to pop up in every case that we come across and that's what drives us to stand for girls and help even when we have little to give to the down-trodden girls and children,” he says.

The impact isn’t just on society and the retrieved girls. It has also had an impact on Mr Musokotwane.

He says: “Serving as a lead servant at MCMZ has made me realise that we are all tools in God's hands. The opportunity has changed my view of success as not the acquisition of fame, material things or money but by how our actions, lifestyle and character bring the kingdom of heaven to those in distress.”

He adds: “The privilege to serve under this organisation has made me have a global view on how best we can improve our communities and the country’s social and economic development for all.”

MCMZ retrieves girls from child marriages and provides them with shelter, basic needs, and education support through a school sponsorship programme.

“MCMZ work improves the protection, health and education chances for girls, and widens their economic opportunities in society,” he says. 

“Child marriages are mainly driven by poverty, perception of girls as only good for marriage, inequality among boys and girls, and also [bad] traditional practices. We can curtail these by investing in the education of girls, especially those at risk of falling into the trap and also those already retrieved.”

He adds that improved economic opportunities for families in rural areas are key in the fight against the vice.

“Since inception, we have been dealing with 20 cases on average, annually. We need to abolish all those traditional practices that impede the development of young girls,” he says.

To keep afloat, the organisation has some income generating activities such as farming, beverage brewing and supply, fundraising galas and musical concerts, crowd funding and individual donors.

He says a number of prominent private and public schools in the district have partnered with his organisation to offer scholarships to the girls under its auspices and care.

It operates within four thematic areas, namely, advocacy, capacity building, child protection, and education support.

“We hardly face resistance when rescuing these girls from these toxic marriages,” he says. “We are part of the victim's family support who are mostly the ones that report such cases to us and these are the same families we rely on for alternative care.”

Mr Musokotwane, who has been married for slightly under two years now, has earned himself a name for his actions and contribution to society. While acknowledging a reduction in the number of any such cases, he advises parents to desist from sending their children into early marriages.

 “The reduction could be attributed to concerted efforts by stakeholders and the government's free education policy. However, there is a need to continue addressing the poverty levels among rural areas as the vice is mostly propelled by poverty and hunger in most of these areas,” he says.

Mr Musokotwane who is also a promising young farmer in Southern province studied public relations at Evelyn Hone College and also spent some years in South Africa studying Missions and Leadership and while there, worked for a number of charitable organisations.

NOTE: This article was also published in the Zambia Daily Mail newspaper of Wednesday, January 4, 2023. 

TURNING LEMONS INTO LEMONADE: the case of Legendary Creations' Jane Namunji

JANE Namunji embodies the saying ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’.

When the 28-year-old lost her mother in 2005 to pneumonia, and her father a year later, her life turned topsy-turvy.

She was only 15 then, and doing her tenth grade.

“That changed a lot of things in life. Things just became somewhat hard for me,” says Jane, who is fifth-born in a family of eight.

“Growing up, we were okay but everything changed when we lost our parents. It was almost like the hardest moment of our lives, but I will not exaggerate it because at least we had a roof over our heads. But it’s just never easy to lose your parents.

“I would say from the time my mother died, school fees became a challenge because my father was in and out of hospital - I think my mother's death may have depressed him or something,” says Jane.

Luckily for her, the Forum for African Women Educationalists of Zambia was on hand to take up her school needs and ensure that she completed her education in 2007.

When her parents died, Jane and her other siblings were left in the care of their other older sister, before others were taken in by their father’s relatives.

“I was the only one that was not adopted by a father figure,” she says. “Now that I am older, I realised how difficult it was for my sister to take care of us with the little money that our parents left.”

Jane graduated from high school in 2007, scoring 17 points. But instead of going to college or university, she decided to look for a job to support her own livelihood.

Her first job was as a sales lady in a boutique in Dambwa Central market, where she earned K150 as her monthly salary.

“I remember the salary so well because at that time, it seemed like a lot of money because I didn’t have to think of rent and I had not held that much money before, I had just completed school,” she says.

Jane would later work for Debonairs, where she earned a more decent salary.

And at only 18 years old, Jane then decided to move out of the family house, with only a blanket and a few belongings, to rent a one room in 217 Township.

“To supplement my income, I also started selling clothes,” she says. But she wasn’t to last at the fast food restaurant.

Because of her love for art, she quit her job at Debonairs to join a Canadian couple - Marylin and Bob Gregory - at the Livingstone Performing Arts Foundation in 2009.

“While there, with the encouragement of my bosses, I decided to go to school. I applied and was eventually accepted to study Law at the Zambia Open University. But I was overwhelmed with the fees and also time to study, that’s how I ended up doing just one term,” she says. “But after two years, the organisation closed and  Bob and Marylin told me to do something with my life.”

Bob and Marylin paid four months rentals for Jane and left her some money to sustain herself.

Jane still had plans of returning to university, but because she could not afford the fees, she decided to abandon the idea.

Instead, she enrolled at Livingstone Institute of Business and Engineering Studies (LIBES) to study accountancy with the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants (ZICA).

“My school was really slow,” she says. “As I was about to finish my Technician [first level of ZICA], I fell pregnant, forcing me to completely stop school in 2012.

“My pregnancy was not an easy one, I was literally sick throughout and I was still taking care of myself. And when the child was born, it didn’t make things any easier either.”

When her child grew a bit older, Jane got a job as a bookkeeper for Blue Ray Night Club.

“I cannot explain the kind of luck I have when it comes to getting jobs,” she says.

After working for the night club for three years, Jane quit and got a bigger job at Vilole Images Productions (VIP).

It was while there that she decided to even complete the ZICA Technician course at LIBES.

But she now had to juggle life as a wife and mother. And she was expecting her second child.

Being home on maternity leave led Jane to discover a new talent in handicraft, something she used to love doing in her free time.

And as fate would have it, a few months after returning to work, Jane and others were laid off in 2019  because the company she worked for went bust.

It was then that she decided never to look for employment again.

“That is how I decided to go full-time into crafting and jewelry,” she says.

Jane officially registered her business in 2019 and used Facebook to advertise her products.

Her business is called Legendary Creations.

As her business grew, she attracted attention beyond her own country.

“I get most of my supplies from Tanzania because we don’t have them here. I have been receiving invitations in Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi and even Namibia to train women on how to do this,” she says.

Supported by her husband, Namunji Namunji, Jane makes jewelry, bracelets, necklaces from beads among other African themed crafts.

She supplies her crafts on both retail and wholesale to several clients in Livingstone and other parts of the country.

She says her main desire is to create products that will not only dominate the Zambian market, but also sell the Zambian talent to the rest of the world.

She also hopes to create a platform in the near future for different artists to network, and a training ground for upcoming artists.

COVID-19: Be well informed and guard against misinformation before more people are duped

NDANGWA JOHN ANDREWS MWITTAH

IT is sad that in the wake of something as serious as the coronavirus, an outbreak that was recently declared a global pandemic, people could still be making fun of it and other people on social media.

There is a video that has gone viral and making rounds on social media of an elderly woman, old enough to be my grandmother who was swindled by some unscrupulous people somewhere in Southern province.

The named woman - albeit sensing the danger that surrounds us went to the market to buy hand sanitisers and hand washing soap to protect herself and her family from the virus that has claimed many lives and left others battling for theirs.

Instead of being sold what she wanted, the woman was instead sold some dish-washing liquid formula and sponge. Who does that?

In the video, the woman who was clearly robbed was seen being mocked by those that were taking the video. In all fairness, this is not the time to start making fun of this disease. It is high time Zambians took this pandemic seriously.

It calls for a multi-sectoral approach, as clearly, there is a lot of sensitisation that is needed out there. The authorities, traditional leaders, civic leaders, church leaders and indeed everyone that can, must take it upon themselves to go flat out and educate the people on the dangers of the disease, how to prevent it and also the recommended items needed to help combat the pandemic - here, the media must also be proactive in sending out accurate information to curb the misinformation being spread.

Speaking of misinformation, there is also word going round on social media advising people not to use the face masks donated to Africa by the Jack Ma Foundation saying they are infected with the virus.

Clearly, these are falsehoods.

Those of us privileged enough to have access to accurate information, we must also ensure that we share it with relatives and friends that may not be privy to such information, especially those in rural areas.

From the numbers that are coming from the world's biggest economies, it goes to show that as Africa, we are not ready or adequately prepared for this virus. We must therefore take it upon ourselves to do everything possible to curb the spread of the virus.

Government agencies such as the Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS), Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) and other like minded agencies must also ensure that these products being sold are of the recommended standard. There has been reports of retailers cashing in on unauthorised substandard products to desperate and unsuspecting people, such as the old woman in question.

Others are also diluting the liquid soap and hand sanitisers - all of which will come to an exercise in futility regarding the fight against the coronavirus. The pandemic is real, it is high time we took the measures put up by the Government seriously.

Ndangwa Mwittah is a Livingstone based Zambia Daily Mail correspondent.

OBITUARY: Chiinga Siavwapa, friend of humans and animals who dedicated his life to nature

Chiinga Siavwapa

HIS last words to his wife were, “I hope I survive this day.”

That same day he was killed by an elephant. His death reverberated throughout the nation. Yet, he was just a tour guide. However, it seems there was more to him than just that.

On September 13, 2019, Livingstone (no, the nation) woke up to news of the death of renowned tour guide Chiinga Siavwapa, 45, who was undertaking a walking safari with a tourist in the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park.

Chiinga, as he was fondly known took an unidentified tourist on an early morning safari walk in the national park when the incident happened.

It is believed to have happened between between 06:00 and 08:00 hours near Maramba River Lodge after the Maramba River Bridge. The tourist managed to escape unhurt.

We caught up with his widow Nina Siavwapa, a German national who shared with us some of the last moments she had with her husband who was evidently popular and loved in Livingstone and beyond.

“The day started normally as it always does. I woke up and prepared the kids for school while he got busy on the computer and left for work,” she says. 

“His last words to me on that day were, ‘I hope I survive this day’. He would say that because he usually had very busy days. I told him, ‘no, don’t worry, you will manage just fine.”

Nina says the conversation ended with the usual pleasantries of “I love you” before he left. It was the last stare she was to have of him alive.

“There was a funny wipe in town, I don't know how but no one was telling me what had happened when I left home for the pickup point to go for work,” Nina who was accompanied by her close friend Claire Powell during the interview says.

She says her nephew who somehow got wind of the accident had asked her about it. “He told me that people are saying that there was an accident in the park and asked me whether I knew anything. I said, no, I don't. He then told me to check my phone, and it was at that point that I realised that I had left my phone," she says.

“We tried to call my phone and someone was already at my place and they also tried to communicate with me and they asked me to rush to the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) offices."

On her way there, she met a few people she knew. They knew about the accident but did not tell her anything.

Chiinga on a walking safari

“I met a few people who were asking me about the accident. I was like, ‘do you know any more than I know?’ Tell me more, but everyone was like, I don't know. I think it was very difficult for people to tell me,” she says.

When she arrived at the DNPW offices, Nina was notified about the passing of her husband.

“They told me Chiinga was gone and that there was nothing they could do to save him,” she says.

Chiinga and Nina met in 2009 on a walking safari. After several meetings, they fell in love and got married in 2011 and they have two children together - eight-year-old Chipo and five-year-old Marlin.

“They are energetic, smart, beautiful boys. Much like their father, they are nature-loving,” she says.

The boys are aware of what happened to their father.

“They want everything to be as normal as possible. They say they miss their father. They say, ‘daddy was the best chef’. We were talking about food and they said the best chef will always be daddy. The one who knows most about birds, it is daddy always and forever and in everything else, they just knew their father to be the best in the whole wide world.”

Chiinga was more than just a tour guide. He was an artist as well as an environmental and wildlife conservationist who spoke about the protection of wildlife including against the disruption of the elephant corridor.

“In these past few days, people have told me that everything has a purpose, God has a purpose for everything in life and if there is a purpose in my husband, leaving this earth, this early and in this way, it is to show that even one of the best guides in the country can be killed by an elephant on his job,” she says.

"Maybe it's high time we give these animals their space. There is plenty of land to build things in Livingstone, up north, there is plenty of land. The true Africa knew how to live with animals, and Chiinga knew this and that is what he wanted.

“Chiinga would always say, ‘let’s protect the elephants, let’s protect that animal’ and anyone who knew my husband would say the same thing."

Chiinga was born on February 27, 1974 in Ndola. He is the son of David and Elenora Siavwapa. The fourth born in a family of six, he moved to Livingstone at the age of six where his father was a lecturer at David Livingstone College of Education (DALICE).

He did his secondary education at Hillcrest Technical Secondary School, where he graduated in 1992. He also went to Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka and Chipata Trades Training Institute.

“But all that time, Livingstone which was his home kept calling him,” the widow says.

Chiinga later joined the Livingstone Walking Safaris where he worked as a guide for many years before quitting and starting his own company, Savannah Southern Safari’s together with his wife Nina, who does all the administrative and marketing work for the company.

“Most walking safari tour guides here in Livingstone where trained by him and he never hesitated to take on anyone with the talent and passion for tour guiding on internship,” Nina says.

Following his death, Chiinga was cremated on Monday after a funeral service at Villa Grounds in Livingstone. “It was his wish,” Nina says.

“He mentioned it to me, his siblings and his family that he wants to be cremated. He used to say that the thought of being confined in a box, being eaten by worms would be unbearable for him. He loved nature, and all he wanted was for his ashes to be free in nature.”

It is not the end of Chiinga though.

The Zambia Association of Tour Guides (ZATG) have suggested setting apart September 13 as a day dedicated to conservation in memory of Chiinga.

He has left indelible memories.

“Always a big smile, extremely passionate. He was very hopeful that there is always a way and he believed that good would come. And I think that is what he was trying to spread, it was the philosophy that people would believe that if one person would make a change everyone would change,” Claire, who owns Thorntree Lodge, says. 

"I think young people got the message, it’s just us adults that are still yet to get the message."

At his funeral service, a little girl, a daughter of someone close to the family came with a plastic bag to pick the litter at Villa Grounds where over 1, 000 people were in attendance.

“I was so happy and proud to see that because that is exactly what Chiinga was like,” says Nina.

Claire adds: “We had 400 bottles of water and it wasn’t enough for even half the people there. There were people everywhere. Chiinga was a people person, he had friends from all walks of life.”

Quentino Mbinji, a Livingstone-based tour guide, says Chiinga was a good person.

“Yes of course he was a good guy! He used to lecture our high profile guests at the lodge each time a group arrives on the second day about David Livingstone's history. He was supposed to come and lecture two days after he died, unfortunately he's

unreachable,” Mbinji says.

Zambia Tourism Association (ZTA) senior promotions manager Jocelyn Mutinta, who has known Chiinga for more than 20 years, says he was a seasoned tour guide who was passionate about nature, wildlife and cared for all that surrounded him.

“I remember him telling me to try and walk as opposed to driving on some days and Mother Nature will be happy with me while I would be healthier," Jocelyn says.

"When I travelled with him to the Netherlands, he made an impact when he emphasised on why his business was more on walking safaris and not game drives. He said that brought people close to nature and only then would they realise that both animals and trees were important and needed their space without disturbance.

“His [trade] mark was a smile. A loving brother, a tourism ambassador and lover of nature. He truly died doing what he loved.” she says.

Livingstone residents knew him very well.

“He was a unique person who believed in exposing his passion for the environment. A man who was always putting on a smile of humility. We shall always remember him as a hard working tour guide,” Neto Halwabala says.

Daniel Ngoma adds: "He was ever smiling and had vast knowledge of birds and was a fountain of knowledge about the hospitality industry and was a very good artist as well.”

Journalist and former Livingstone resident Matongo Maumbi remembers Chiinga's smile. “I am a smiler and he was a smiler. We always found ourselves smiling at each other," Matongo says.

"The first time we met, when we smiled at each other I started thinking about where I knew him from. From that day on it was 'hi my brother'. But we didn't know each other that close. He brought to life the belief that people with dreads naturally bring happiness to the people around them,” the dreadlocked Matongo says.

His younger Michelo, popularly known as Shyman Shaizo, who is now based in Maryland, U.S.A says Chiinga was more than just a brother to him and his siblings.

"He was an uncle to many, brother to my friends too, father to his sons, a husband to my sister Nina. I remember him in so many ways but mostly is how much he cared for the environment. How he wouldn't walk past litter without picking it up and putting it in a trash can," he says.

“He was different from all of us. He never took life for granted. He cared for anything that has life or that would endanger life, starting from plants to animals. He was art, he would turn any piece into art and explain it to you into an artwork.

“His untimely death has changed my life forever. I never thought I would ever have so much pain in my life. Pain that you can't wish for anybody. He was proud of my works and a critic at the same time because he wanted the best out of me. 

"I miss him so dearly, his jokes, his love for nature and above all, his wisdom and advice as an elder brother. He was one person who preferred walking so that he could meet a lot of people.”

The neighbours noticed something about Chiinga. “We lived in opposite houses in Luena crescent. Away from that, I watched him live a life that appreciates nature. He made me appreciate animals more and the love for young souls that are passionate about their talents was impressive,” Davison Munsanda says.

National Art Gallery resident artist Chansa Chishimba describes Chiinga as a very creative artist. “I knew him since he was a young man and he grew up among artists. Such a great loss,” Chansa says.

Clare Mateke, a scientist working at the Livingstone Museum, also has fond memories of Chiinga. “I worked with him for many years on birds and animals study projects and I was deeply disappointed and hurt when I heard he died. We should continue with his fight of wildlife conservation. He was a good man.”

Chiinga wasn’t popular to locals only.

“Chiinga, our guide from Savannah Southern Safari knew every plant, bird, animal, and bug to be seen. I hold advanced degrees in biology and there wasn't a thing he didn't know - he spoke to me just as easily and technically as a professional colleague but using language and ways that everyone in our party understood. Precious few have this gift and he uses it well,” someone posted on TripAdvisor, a travel and hospitality website.

This article was published in the Zambia Daily Mail Newspaper on 21, September, 2019. You can find it on this link http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/friend-of-humans-animals/