The Catholic Weekly 21 June 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 12 21, June, 2020 FEATURE Young women are seen in the garden at the Jipe Moyo centre in Musoma, Tanzania. PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/CNS PHOTO/SEAN SPRAGUE, COURTESY MARYKNOLL Elizabeth Mach, a Maryknoll lay missioner, poses with children at the Jipe Moyo centre in Musoma, Tanzania. PHOTO: CNS/SEAN SPRAGUE, COURTESY MARYKNOLL WHEN SHE was only 8 years old, Ghati was sold by her old- er brother to a 55-year-old man, who put the orphan on a motorcycle and rode to his house near Musoma, Tanza- nia.There, theman raped her. After two weeks of daily as- saults, Ghati escaped while the man was working in his fields. On the path to the local village, she met a young woman and appealed for help. The woman, who had legal training, advised Ghati to return to the man’s house and wait until she could come for her that evening. When the woman arrived that night, she brought the police, who confronted the man. “Oh, no,” the man said. “She’s just my house girl.” “But you call me your wife,” Ghati said.Themanwas arrest- ed and eventually sentenced to prison. Ghati, a pseudonym to pro- tect her identity, was taken to the city of Musoma, on the shore of Lake Victoria, and placed in a shelter under the care of the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Africa. “What the centre does is support vulnerable children,” said Sister Annunciata Chacha, director of the shelter called Jipe Moyo , a Swahili term meaning ‘To Give Heart’. Jipe Moyo, a program of the Muso- ma Diocese, cares for children who have been living on the street; children who run away from domestic violence; chil- drenwhoflee fromfemale gen- ital mutilation (FGM), which is sometimes called female cir- cumcision; and girls escaping fromchildmarriages. “We provide shelter, school materials, food, medicine, clothing, shoes, everything,” Sister Chacha said. Jipe Moyo shelters 70 mi- nors, most of whom are girls, some as young as 2 years old, who’ve been orphaned or abandoned. One 5-year-old girl was found sleeping on a garbage dump after being kicked out of her house by her stepmother. More than a dozen boys at the centre were rescued from the streets. JipeMoyoalso supports more than 50 children at local boarding schools. A few have gone on to college.The centre’s ¾ ¾ Lynn Monahan location in north central Tan- zania is no coincidence. The Mara region of Tanza- nia, of which Musoma is the capital, has some of that coun- try’s highest rates of child mar- riage and female genital mu- tilation, even though both are technically illegal in Tanzania. In the Mara region, 55 per cent of marriages involve mi- nors under the legal age of 18; many of those involve girls as young as 12 or 13, said Eliz- abeth Mach, a Maryknoll lay missioner who works as as- sistant director of the office of planning and development for the Musoma Diocese. That fig- ure compares with 37 per cent of marriages involving minors nationally in the East African country. Similarly, 44 per cent of girls in the Mara region are subject- A real chance at life AnAfricanDiocese, its bishop, religious sisters and laymissionaries arewinning a slowwar toprotect girls andboys fromabuse and superstition ed to genital mutilation, com- pared with 15 per cent nation- ally, Mach said. “So we have child marriag- es, we have domestic abuse, we have kids running from FGM, we have trafficking of kids, we’ve got everything, and it all comes under that one big umbrella of gender-based violence,” said Mach, a nurse who has spent 44 years in East Africa with the Maryknoll Lay Missioners. Much of her work, especially in the last decade, centres on helping women and combating gender-based violence. Mach said part of the rea- son for the high rates of fe- male genital mutilation and child marriages in the Mara area is ethnic and cultural:The dominant ethnic group in the area, the Kuria people, have traditionally practiced FGM as a rite of passage for young girls, making them eligible for marriage. This leads to early marriages and girls as young as 12 becoming pregnant. That results in a high mortality rate for these would-be moth- ers. For survivors, it can mean painful, long-term and poten- tially life-threatening health problems. “Body-wise, they are not ready at all” for pregnancy,” she said. Among other ethnic groups in Tanzania, such as the Luo and the Sukuma peoples, the practice of cutting is not part of their cultures, she said. “They don’t do FGM, but the abuse of girls and the use of girls sexually is very, very high,” she said. However, gender-based vi- olence, mostly against women in various forms, is not limited to Tanzania or to East Africa, Mach said. It occurs around the world, including in the US, where underage marriage remains an issue. According to a 2017 PBS Frontline report that sur- veyed state marriage records between 2000 and 2015, chil- dren as young as 12 or 13 had been allowed to marry in var- ious US states. And the World Health Organisation estimates that, annually, 3 million girls around the world face geni- tal mutilation in 30 different countries. At Jipe Moyo, 17-year-old Mwita said she ran away from home to avoid female mutila- tion, which her stepfather was insisting she undergo. “My mum didn’t want me to pass through that stage, but the tribe says that every child must pass that stage,” said Mwita. “So when I tell my mum I won’t do it, she refused to hear me because she knew she would be beaten or even divorced.” Distressed at the prospect of being cut, Mwita confided to her school headmistress, who, with the school social worker, brought the girl to Jipe Moyo. Today, Mwita is continuing her studies and hopes to become a doctor. Her mother occasionally vis- its her, but only in secret for fear of being beaten by her husband. Mwita has no con- tact with the rest of her family. Even when both the moth- er and father are against cutting their daughters, the What the centre does is support vul- nerable children ... We provide shelter, school materials, food, medicine, clothing, shoes, everything.” Sister Annunciata Chacha Bishop Michael Msonganzi- la of the Tanzanian Diocese of Musoma, is credited with leading the charge against fe- male genital mutilation.