Johannesburg – Siziwe Zwane, the mother of a 16-year-old girl, who was abducted on her way to school under the pretense of the customary practice known as ukuthwala (forced marriage) has highlighted the vulnerability of widow-headed households to the act.
Zwane from the rural village of Bergville in KwaZulu-Natal in the far Midlands district told Sunday World that ukuthwala had been on the increase.
She detailed how young women of school-going age were forced to constantly look over their shoulders, terrified that the older men and their accomplices might hunt them down.
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“My husband passed away years back, so I had to raise our four daughters all by myself. The eldest is 19 and the youngest is 12. My elder daughter was targeted while on her way to school by men who said they wanted her to be a wife to one of their brothers who was working as a truck driver,” she said.
“She was 16 at the time doing her matric. The following day, a group of men came to our homestead forcing us to accept ilobolo [dowry] for her,” she added.
She said she had no one to turn to for assistance because the local induna (headman) supported the assailants, calling the act a “good gesture”.
“I eventually opened a case with the police to help me get my daughter back. I, then, had to send her to my sister’s place in Newcastle fearing for her safety. I only stay with the youngest who is 12, the rest of them are with my relatives,” she said.
Slindile Ntanzi of eMthandeni village in KwaMaphumulo near Stanger, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, has her own harrowing story to tell, saying her virginity was taken away prematurely by the son of a respected traditional leader in the area.
“I was about 17 and had just finished matric. I was only told by my uncle that in the next few weeks some people were coming to pay ilobola for me. He said as a family there was nothing they could do because he was the son of an important family in the area. I was a virgin then and had big aspirations of becoming a geologist. All this was taken away from me,” said Ntanzi.
The forced marriage didn’t last long, compelling her to rebuild her life from scratch after the arranged setup crumbled.
Ntanzi said the abduction of young girls into arranged marriages was rife in the village and was rarely reported.
Following an outcry and pressure from the women’s rights organisations, the government criminalised ukuthwala under the Trafficking in Persons Act, but despite these drastic measures the customary practice persists mainly in the rural areas of Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Dr. Nomagugu Ngobese who runs Nomkhubulwane Youth Development Organisation said ukuthwala had been misconstrued by pedophiles.
“People who abduct young girls are not practicing ukuthwala; they are rapists and sex traffickers.
“They must be arrested, and harshest sentences must be imposed,” Ngobese said.
“Historically, ukuthwala did not promote marriage without a woman’s consent.”
Practice not understood due to ‘lack of research’
Lack of research on “ukuthwala” leads to misconceptions about the practice.
According to Nyasha Karimakwenda, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Cape Town who has conducted research into the complexities and reality of ukuthwala, prior to 2009 only a small body of academic research existed, much of it concentrated on the romantic forms, akin to elopement.
“From media and government reports, legal scholarship and case law, two general conclusions emerged during this period. The first was non-consensual ukuthwala as a modern phenomenon. The second was that it was an abuse of tradition, not an authentic customary practice,” said Karimakwenda.
In 2009 research exploring the bride abduction in KwaZulu-Natal schools and its effects on education, Makho Nkosi pointed out that Bergville was one of the hotspots of ukuthwala in the province.
He said the abuse of the custom has resulted in young girls being kidnapped while attending school – during break times on their way to and from school.
“They are raped and impregnated and made wives, in most cases by total strangers. It involves physical violence and grossly violates the girls’ fundamental human rights.”
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