The age of marriage has been interpreted differently by various communities in Uganda. Among the Muslims for example, a girl is supposed to be married off as soon as she starts menstruating. The constitution of Uganda clearly stipulates it that anybody below the age of 18 years is a child and by law is not supposed to marry or get married.
Despite this, children in Uganda have continued to marry and get married at a tender age. This is because of many predisposing factors:
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• A big percentage of children in Uganda marry at an early age due to or low levels of education in their families. This is because when a child is not or drops out of school, the community looks at marriage as the only alternative for her.
• Most girls get married early because of economic difficulties such as lack of sanitary pads, lunch at school and other scholastic materials. If the girl in question meets a man who apparently can provide her needs, she can be easily lured into early marriage since she looks at that particular man as ‘’a hero’’ in her life.
• Some parents marry off their girls at an early age hoping to gain material wealth out of them. This includes “gomeses” and “kanzus”, sugar, salt and other necessities as well as money.in such societies girls are called ‘’sukali’’ meaning they are a source of sugar to the family.
• In schools, young people are influenced by their peers to get involved into risky behaviors that drive them into early marriage. These may include: sexual relationships, drug abuse, pornography and others.
Most of the cases of teenage pregnancy have in way or another contributed to early marriages in Uganda. When girls get pregnant; whether school going or not, the first attempt will be abortion. If not, then the next will be to get married to the owner of the pregnancy. This is caused by stigma from peers and the entire community.
The ever increasing levels of early marriage in Uganda have greatly affected girls as compared to boys and have their roots in villages other than towns. This calls for collaborative effort from the government and all stakeholders to lay down strategies and remedy the scourge.
