Laurence  's view on cities'girls:2- Abortions and early wedding.          Home         continue
Ignorance and loneliness are also a source of wretchedness. So, for those young girls, material poverty goes hand in hand with solitude, which is why most of them resort to secret abortion, thus hiding it from their parent's frightening reactions.It is possible for them to continue their studies, but at the expense of many sacrifices such as serious infections, sterility and event death risks, not to mention AIDS and other STD risks(sexually transmitted diseases). Josiane, a former 4TH year schoolgirl of 18, gave me her evidence:" I'm a mother of a 2 year old baby whose father, a grammar'school fellow of mine, left me during my pregnancy, denying being the father or my baby. He did so because, as a teenage boy lacking everything, He was fearing threatening reactions of both and his own family's alike. Now, I am left alone, raising my child with some help from my parents. I collected another evidence from J.Yvonne, a 6th grade schoolgirl of 20. ''My boyfriend left me, and I resorted to having and abortion. I didn't want this pregnancy because I wanted to continue my studies. I had this abortion done without my parents knowing it, and in bad conditions. I even almost died of it! Early wedding practice. A practice which does not last hitting badly African girls, is the one of early wedding. In our region, forced marriages of minor girls remain a matter tradition, which means authority of men and submission of their daughters. In some African traditions, parents are supposed to pick a husband for their daughters. The 2 families make arrangement to marry their children, the brides being very young, even minors. On the other hand, men are older (sometimes the age of their wives' fathers). Those unmatched weddings without consent lead to separations and divorces as soon as the girls come of age. This more often leads them to prostitution, mothers of several children with different fathers. According to another evidence given by 18 years old Céline, a mother of two, she was married at 14years old  to a man of 30, after their 2 families arrangements.	She was too young to figure out what a marriage really was, so she kept playing with other girls her age, within wedlock. The disturbed husband started to harass and punish her, an unbearable condition for her . One year later, she left her husband and went to her parents' home. This led her to date several boys her age, with as a result, a second pregnancy. Today, Céline has to struggle to feed her children, being relinquished by both her parents and her second husband.. Dowry practice This practice hangs over African girls condition. The dowry is often an amount of money given by the husband to an older member of the bride's family. This elder member is often the paternal uncle of the girl, among the "Luba" of the Congo Kinshasa Republic (former Zaïre). Among the "Kongo ethnic group, the dowry will go to the oldest maternal uncle. According to tradition, the oldest girl of a family is to be married at an early age, in order to make it  possible for the beneficiary to take advantage of it before his death, which is the explanation of early weddings. Many a man are reluctant to marry a girl already a child's mother. Hence the habit of marrying young girls as soon as possible after puberty. A comprehensive change of mentality is required to get rid of these customs. To this end, an action is being led by various associations of women toward the woman well-being. After listening several to those young girls, I come to the conclusion that only their ignorance and lack of sexual education are to be blamed in the first place, as they fall victims of age-old traditions. Moreover, they show some lateness in the awareness of educational responsibility towards their own babies. Furthermore, a section of the society is indifferent to their fates and reject them.As far as I am concerned, I stand by the women associations that are struggling to make those vital changes come true.