Forced marriage is a major concern for mental health of victims: Why are partners not doing enough? A case of Somalia

Author: Bahja Hassan
Independent Somali Gender Analyst

Summary

This article points out why initiatives to address child and forced marriages in Somalia are inadequate at providing mental health services to survivors of child marriages. It proposes an urgent rethinking of current interventions and approaches to integrate mental healthcare services so that frontline workers are equipped with necessary skills to provide services to young mothers. It argues that failure to integrate mental healthcare services into programmes aimed at ending child and forced marriage would not provide any meaningful results. This is because child and forced marriage inevitably impact girls’ mental health so much as it violates their rights to dignity, education, and livelihoods.

Introduction

Child and forced marriage (CFM) is a violation of a girl’s right to dignity, and it robs them of childhood including the right to education. According to UNICEF, more than 700 million girls and women were married in childhood; 17% of them, or 125 million in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence of child marriage followed by South Asia, Latin and Caribbean. According to the first ever Somalia Health Demographic Survey conducted in 2020, 16% of ever-married women aged 20-49 were married by age 15 and 34% by the age of 18. This puts Somalia among the worst places to be a girl. Child marriage forces girls out of school and places layers of risks and vulnerabilities in the lives of girls and young women. Child mothering increases poverty and health risks for both the child and the mother since young mothers would not have had necessary knowledge and life-skills necessary to raise children and manage a family.

In recognising the negative implications of CFM on education, poverty alleviation, and other human rights, the government of Somalia and its development partners have been advocating to end child, early and forced marriages (CEFM) in Somalia. However, as the section below indicates, not much has changed but more importantly, programmes have failed to address mental health needs of girls who fall victim to CFM.

Overview of child and forced marriages in Somalia

Somalia has the tenth highest prevalence of child marriage globally wherein 45 percent of girls are married before their 18th birthday and 8 percent at the age of 15.  Whereas there are multitude of drivers of child marriage in Somalia, certain key factors are common push factors some of which are discussed in an analysis by Girls Not Brides. Broadly speaking, the drivers of CFM include:

• Family honour – given the social-cultural underpinning of the CFM practice, a family has to marry off their daughter so as not to be shamed by community members who might hold an impression that not marrying early means something is wrong with the girl or her family.
• In search of economic gain or escaping poverty – parents might marry off daughters to a man for economic purposes, which often involve lack of consent of the girl in the decision of her marriage.
• Peer pressure from girls who are already married is another factor that pushes girls to make the decision to marry early.
• Weak institutional and legal frameworks that protect girls from CFM. If girls are not going to school, chances of them marrying as children are high. Even more, there are no supporting institutions and legal regimes through which girls can seek refugee when they dissent early and forced marriages.
• Prolonged conflict and political instability in Somalia is also a factor that emboldens the non-state armed groups to practice CFM as a weapon of war in supporting their mission.

Evidently, these drivers are multifaceted, dynamic and require comprehensive programming to eliminate them. Unfortunately, initiatives to address CFM have overly focused on legislative and policy frameworks and community awareness on harmful practice but fail to address the mental health conditions of CFM survivors who live with the agony of not only being child mothers, but also without education and requisite life skills and ultimately limited access to income and independence.

Mental health implications of CFM on girls

Children who fall victim to CFM tend to suffer from mental health challenges due to pressure of taking care of children, family and at times complications during childbirth. They also face violence abuse from their partners either physically or psychologically. Most of the girls unfortunately get fistula and they do not get treatment because they will either shy away from sharing their condition or they may not have financial support to access appropriate healthcare services. These challenges combined put a toll on young mothers’ mental health.

As an expert and practitioner in the field of gender equality, I have observed that the current programmes aimed at addressing CFM often fall short of integrating mental healthcare for survivors of CFM. This includes messaging aimed at preventing CFM so that communities are educated of not just the fact that CFM is a violation of fundamental rights of girls, but that it in fact puts them at risk of severe mental health challenges.

What needs to be done? –Broad conclusions and recommendations

Child marriage is a violation of human rights and a practice that should be stopped. It robs girls of their futures and puts them at risk of serious mental care risks. Programmes designed to address CFM should integrate mental health so that girls who fall victim to CFM are able to access such support services. There are several steps that could be taken to ensure CFM survivors access services. They include:

• Integrating mental health services in all CFM interventions and linking them to community structures through which girls in remote areas can access.
• Training frontline workers such as health professionals and community volunteers on mental healthcare so that they can deliver services in the so-called hard-to-reach areas.
• Laws and policies should be incorporated into addressing the mental health of CFM survivors. This includes at states and federal levels.
• Improve messaging and community awareness on mental health care for CFM survivors.
• Involve CFM survivors in programme design and implementation to ensure underlying causes are highlighted and addressed accordingly.

The current approaches that focus on laws, policies, and other programmes are useful but insufficient. Addressing CFM requires integrated intervention including mental health services given the multidimensional nature of the issue.

About the Author:

Bahja Hassan is an Independent Somali Gender Analyst