Machinga teen bride meets Obama
An orphaned girl rescued from an arranged marriage in Machinga attended the United Nations General Assembly on Monday and met US First Lady Michelle Obama in a lobby for greater investment to keep girls in school.
Halima Robert was 15 when her grandmother married her off to a man twice her age two years ago. The Standard Seven pupil was freed by a mothers group pivotal to Aspire—an $18.2 million Usaid push to enhance girls’ education and health in Machinga, Balaka and Zomba.
Her re-enrolment last year has transformed her into a role model for her peers at a time one in two women in the country marry before their 18th birthday.
She recounted her heroic story at a “Let Girls Learn” event hosted by Obama alongside her fellow first ladies on the sidelines of the UN assembly yesterday.
Looking back, she narrated: “I lost my mother when I was seven and was left in the care of my grandmother. She did not have the money to provide food and clothing for my two sisters, brother and me. I often went to school on an empty stomach with no notebooks and pens.
In 2014, when I was in Standard Seven, I learned that a 30-year-old man was interested to marry me. He said he would provide for me. My grandmother arranged our marriage because she was unable to provide for me.”
The girl may have survived setbacks of arranged marriages, but she is still grappling with hunger and poverty that threatens her struggle to become “minister of education”.
“I still do not eat three meals every day, but I go to school every day,” she said.
Her life story gripped Obama who took to Broadway to promote her initiative to lessen drawbacks that prevent adolescent girls’ attainment of education.
In her impassioned speech, the First Lady said: “I want to be clear that as First Lady of the United States I have no budget of my own programmes, I have no authority to make or pass laws and I cannot issue any kind of executive orders.
“When people hear the stories of girls who are not in school, they want to help. And as spouses of world leaders, some of us here in this room have platforms to tell these stories and bring people together to take action for these girls.”
Robert jetted off to New York last Friday on invitation from the Usaid which strives to increase the educational achievement of girls and reading skills in primary and secondary schools in the Eastern Region.
The region is the worst hit by the country’s alarming dropout rates, with almost half of the girls who enrol in Standard One dropping out before they sit Primary School Leaving Certificate of Education (PSLCE) examinations. n
