Effects of Poverty on Early Marriages: A Case of Mansa District in Luapula Province, Zambia.

Abstract

Early marriage perpetuates the feminization of poverty, preventing girls from attaining their full potential in terms of developing their social capabilities. Poverty on the other hand, is a state or condition in which a person or community lacks the financial resources and essentials for a minimum standard of living. Education in Zambia was a road to success and every child desired to have access to education and finish without any difficulties but many children failed to succeed in school because they were victims of early marriages. Poverty was the main reason behind early marriages in rural areas as most families had large family sizes. Hence, the study aimed at exploring the effects of poverty on early marriages in Mansa district of Luapula Province in Zambia. The study employed both the qualitative and quantitative methods and a descriptive research design that sampled community headmen, parents and girls from the selected areas. Data was obtained from the respondents by means of interviews and questionnaires. Frequency tables, graphs, figures and pie-charts were used to analyze the qualitative data. Quantitative data were analyzed by the use of software MS access and MS Excel. The findings revealed poverty to be at the epitome of early marriages hence, girls drop out of school at an early age due to poverty and end up marrying early because of not having anything meaningful to do. Other causes include cultural practices, teenage pregnancies and to a lesser extent cultural erosion. The study, therefore, concludes that the effect of poverty on early marriages exists and it affects the girl child education in Mansa district. In this respect, the study recommended that girl children and parents should be given microfinance early to finance girl children for education as well as empowering them. In line with this, there should be a deliberate policy movement aimed at dealing with underlying factors such as poverty among rural people coupled with heavy sexual reproductive health awareness among the young people in the District.