A 19-year-old mother is serving a three months jail term in the Wau Juvenile Detention Centre in South Sudan’s Western Bahr el Ghazal State for refusing to marry a man her family chose.
Mary Akwac Michael who hails from Warrap State said she was convicted in early November by a court in Wau after her family demanded she marries a man who is not the father of her 8-month-old infant.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj at the Wau Juvenile Detention Centre on Wednesday, Akwac said she was forced by her parents to marry a man who divorced his Kenyan wife but has two other wives.
“There is a man who went to our home and said he has an educated relative who wants to marry me. He divorced his third wife who is Kenyan but has two other wives at home and I was told to marry this person so that I can go and look after his children.” Akwac explained. “I told my parents that I do not want to marry this person because I want to marry the father of my child whether he pays bridewealth or not.”
“I told my aunt from Kampala my decision but she replied that my chance to choose a husband has passed and that I have to marry the man my family has chosen,” she added.
Akwac said that after she was told that she had no choice in the matter, she was immediately ordered not to leave home or even go to work and that when she left the house last Friday, she was arrested.
“Last week, I left home to go to work but did not return home because I knew that if I returned, they would have done something bad to me or I would have committed suicide,” she said.
According to Akwac, she decided to go to the house of her child’s father but both of them were arrested on the same day and sent to court where she was convicted and sentenced to serve three months in prison.
Meanwhile, Ayom Chol, the director of the female section at the Wau Juvenile Detention Center, confirmed that Akwac is in their charge.
“Yes, this girl was brought here and when I investigated her case, she told me what she is telling you now but I am not convinced because many inmates here always tell different stories from what happened,” she said.
“Her aunt explained to me that in their culture, a girl does not have a choice but only works with the decision of the family and that is why this girl is here because she is not listening.”
On her part, the Western Bahr el Ghazal State minister of gender, child, and social welfare, Christina Gabriel Ali, condemned the decision of Akwac’s family and likened their action to gender-based violence.
“This girl (Akwac) is very young and this is a forced marriage and she has a small child of 8 months. Let us consider the right of a woman, the right of a child before we can convict and send such a person to prison,” she admonished. “Why are we sending her to prison given that the environment there is not favorable for her child?”
Minister Ali urged parents to stop forcing their daughters into early marriages saying such issues should have been resolved at the family level and not in court.
Nearly half of all girls in South Sudan marry before the age of 18. A 2013 report from Human Rights Watch highlights that dowry often leads families to force their girls to marry as early as possible, often after first menstruation.