Education is one of our strongest tools to end child poverty. Meet Ma Nwe, a former child labourer who is now on the road to success, receiving the education she deserves.
Below we explain Ma Nwe’s experiences as a child labourer and how education has helped her learn the skills to follow her dreams.
From child labourer to dressmaker
Ma Nwe has a big smile as she admires her new sewing machine. It’s a fine-looking Singer with a shiny gold and black body.
For the 20-year-old dressmaking student (pictured above) the machine represents a new beginning. For the first time in a long time the future looks good. Really good.
A new life, and a new home for her mum and sisters, Ma Nwe imagines. And, one day, a tailor shop for herself.
How different things are now, compared to just a few months ago when she was working seven days a week at a manufacturing factory, checking the quality of drinking flasks, day in, day out.
It had been her job for the past seven years, since she was 13 years old.
Leaving school to earn an income
At the age of nine, Ma Nwe dropped out of school to help look after her two younger sisters so her parents could go to work. When their father died she was forced to go to work to make up for the family’s loss of income.
She worked 70-hour weeks, earning an equivalent of about US$60, at the manufacturing factory, and only had one day off a month. All her earnings went to her mother to keep the family afloat.
“If I continued working there, I think nothing would have changed in my life because my earnings were just spent on food,” Ma Nwe says.
When families in the world’s poorest places run out of options, children are especially vulnerable. Exploitation, trafficking and child marriage are among the dangers they face.
That was true for Patricia (pictured above), a teen from Zambia who dreamed of a happier life. “My parents had no reliable source of income, and most of the time we would go to bed without eating anything,” she says.
So when the older man whom she was dating said he would marry her and they would have a good life together, she thought her dreams might finally have a chance of coming true. Below Patricia tells us about her experiences as a child bride and how she left her marriage.
Why do child marriages happen?
There’s rarely a single cause for child marriage. In Patricia’s case, her boyfriend promised her gifts. He promised her money so she could buy the foods she longed to eat, such as fritters and sweets. Hungry and with almost nothing to call her own, Patricia was desperate to believe him.
That was how, at the age of 15, Patricia became a child bride.
She was taken from the safety of home, isolated from her friends, and cut off from school.
How do child marriages affect the child?
The realities of marriage for a child are often different from what is promised by the suitor.
“He said I would be very happy as his wife,” Patricia says.
“Living with my husband at his grandmother’s place was my worst nightmare.
“He stopped giving me money for food and told me to help his grandmother till the land, draw water and grow maize for us to eat … I missed playing ball games with my friends.
“I was never allowed to go anywhere, including school, as I was now a married woman.”
While child marriage is against the law in Zambia, parents and children are often unaware they are protected, or they feel they don’t have other options.
Child marriage in Zambia
The country has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, with 31% of women aged 20 to 24 years married off by the age of 18, according to UNICEF.
Key contributing factors include poverty and girls’ lack of access to education. The United Nations Population Fund found that girls living in rural areas of the developing world are twice as likely to be married before the age of 18 as their urban counterparts, and girls with no education are over three times more likely to do so than those with secondary or higher education.
ChildFund Zambia is helping protect vulnerable girls by educating families and communities about the dangers of child marriage and financially supporting children to continue their education.
