CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.2 N DEBELE GIRLS & GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
Sommer et al., 2017) fails to take into account localised MHMMMs that precede the global development agenda. As a consequence, interventions such as the solitary introduction of sanitary wear without engagement with local KAP fail to meet the need for multi-tiered holistic menstrual preparedness for girls;
the needs of which are nuanced from one locality to another.
Figure 1: Historical distribution of Peoples in Zimbabwe by province Source: News of the South, 201528
As can be seen in Figure 1, the Ndebele and related groups are a minority make up approximately 20% of the total population29. As illustrated overleaf in Figure 2, Matabeleland South is a province made up of 6 districts: (i) Insiza, (ii) Umzingwane, (iii) Bulilmangwe, (iv) Matobo, (v) Gwanda and (vi) Beitbridge.
Matabeleland South shares borders with Botswana and South Africa (Ndhlovu, 2019).
28 http://newsofthesouth.com/85-of-zimbabwes-matabeleland-north-is-poverty-stricken/
I have amended the misspelling of the Tonga people in red ink on the map.
29 The Worldometer estimated (based on UN data) that the population of Zimbabwe was 15.1 million in December 2021.
G
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Figure 2: Matabeleland South by district
Source: ZIMSTAT, 2012
In recognising the turn towards advocating for the rights of the girl child in international development discourse (cf. page 1), it is worth considering the status of women and girls in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe 2019 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) gives us insight into this. According to the 2019 MICS, 4.8% of Zimbabwean girls and women aged 15-49 years were married before their fifteenth birthday (ZIMSTAT & UNICEF, 2019). Of these women who married before the age of 15 years, 6.4% are rural women compared with a cohort of 2.1% who are urban women. The 2019 MICS reports that 5.4% of young women married before the age of 15 fall within the 20-24 years demographic bracket. The percentage of rural young women aged 20-24 years married before the age of 15 is highest at a rate of 8.0%. Following this trend, we find that 10% more of rural young women aged 20-24 are married before the age of 18 than urban women at 33.7% and 43.7%, respectively.
Matabeleland South makes up 4.6% of the MICS general sample population and within the province of Matabeleland South, 2.1% of girls and women aged 15-49 years. However, when disaggregated by age, we find that 1.7% of women 20-24 years married before the age of 15 while 20.3% married before the age of
Botswana
South Africa
18 (ZIMSTAT & UNICEF, 2019:254). There is a correlation between early marriage and low levels of education. We find that 22.1% of girls married before the age of 15 have pre-primary school or no formal education (ZIMSTAT & UNICEF, 2019). Similarly, 12.1% only these women received only a primary school education. The rate of women married before the age of 15 attenuates sharply to 2.5% of women with a secondary (high) school education and 0.2% of women with higher education. Besides the obvious implications on the right to education as enshrined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights30, early marriage for girls also affects health outcomes. For example, the Zimbabwe 2019 MICS reports that:
Women who marry before the age of 18 tend to have more children than those who marry later in life and are less likely to receive maternal health care services. In addition, pregnancy related deaths are known to be a leading cause of mortality for both married and unmarried girls between the ages of 16 and 19” (ZIMSTAT &
UNICEF, 2019:253).
The maternal mortality rate in Zimbabwe is highest for young women aged 20-24 years at 0.56%
(ZIMSTAT & UNICEF, 2019:112). It is 0.3% lower than the national average for girls and women aged 15-49 years, which stands at 0.53% (ZIMSTAT & UNICEF, 2019:112). The proportion of female deaths that are maternal is highest for young women aged 20-24 years at a rate of 20.8%. Maternal mortality is a leading cause of death for this cohort. We can thus conclude that the social determinants of health for adolescent girls aged 16-19 years and young women aged 20-24 years include education, pregnancy and marital status.
The village of Sikelela31 is located 5 kilometres from the nearest health facility. In the way of public transport, there are only two commuter omnibuses that travel this route (one in the morning and one in the evening). Women often have to walk this distance and back on uneven dust roads to access maternal32 and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) services. American economist, Lawrence Summers, proclaimed in 1997 at the 8th Annual General Meeting of the Pakistani Society of Development Economists in Islamabad that for each year of education that a girl receives, her future fertility declined by 5-10%
(Murphy, 2017:10). If we were to follow the economic modelling of Summers, it could be assumed that the
30 Declared by the UN General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948.
31 Not the real name of the village; the village has been given a fictional name in order to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of the participants.
32 During one of my trips to Sikelela, I witnessed a woman who had given birth the previous day walking this distance with her newborn and accompanied by her mother. The conductor of the omnibus I was in asked the passengers to make room for them to board.
education of girls has the potential to decrease future fertility and in the case of Zimbabwe may also drop the rate of (future) maternal mortality. This is, however, a neocolonial and Malthusian33 approach to development to reduce the advantages of educating girls down to lowering their fertility. In her book, The economization of life, Murphy points to “a regime of valuation” (2017:5-6) which arises in after the Second World War that ascribes a monetary value to life (population) through economy. The proposals of Summers suggest a valuation of the lives of poor girls as being less valuable and less capable of meeting their respective consumption needs (e.g., access to food, water and healthcare) and therefore in need population control. Hence there is need to consider other advantages regarding educating women and girls. Yet there is no denying that Summers and Murphy agree with Bobel when she argues that “investing in girls is smart economics” (2019:50).
Pande found the same in India where she ascertained that mother’s level of education had “a significant, positive and independent effect on daughters’ education” in India (2006:22)34. In the bid for gender parity in education it would be pragmatic to explore the mother-daughter link as a means of improving educational outcomes for girls. The impetus to push for the highest levels of educational attainment for women and girls is doubly underscored as a positive effect can also be anticipated generationally. Pande’s case study helps us to understand that the role of women (and by extension, girls) at household level ultimately has a transformational impact at national level (Pande, 2006; Davala et al., 201535). This dissertation details forms of the invisible reproductive labour-work done by women that shape human development, and yet is overlooked in considerations around human development.
Data trends in Southern Africa also reveal that the economic modelling done by Summers is an oversimplification of the benefits of investing in girls and women through education. Marteleto, Lam and Ranchhod (2006) found that in South Africa, girls who fall pregnant and deliver while in school are just as likely to graduate from school as the ones who do not. A study funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) on girls’ education in Mberengwa, Zimbabwe found that there are
“patterns and sequences of events linking pre-marital sex, pregnancy and marriage to girls dropping out of school” (2016:1). The report draws attention to a phenomenon known as the ‘revolving door’ of pupils’
education (DFID/Coffey International Development., 2016:18). This refers to the ‘stop-start’ cycles that
33 Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of food supply and other resources is linear (Malthus, 1798).
34 Similarly in the US, Crenshaw, Ocen and Nanda (2015:27) report the dependence of “many Black children on a female wage earner” and point to high drop-out rate of girls as a critical socioeconomic concern thereof. In Zimbabwe too, matrifocality is prevalent among Black Zimbabweans, see pages 81, 102 and 127.
35 See also Kambhampati and Pal (2001).
repeatedly disrupt the school of girls (DFID/Coffey International Development., 2016:18).36 Among the reasons cited for these disruptions was the failure to pay school fees and various levies. In late 2019 and throughout 2020, in particular, the speed of revolving door was quickened by the Coronavirus (COVID- 19) global as school terms were interrupted to curb the spread of the virus. As I witnessed during my fieldwork – which coincided with the start of a new school term – many children milling around the village having been turned away due to non-payment. In painting a picture of the invisible kin work done Ndebele women in preparing girls for menstruation in this study, we are able to trace the links to the aforementioned sequences of sex and reproduction that are a piece of the drop-out trend puzzle. The findings of this dissertation suggest that menstrual preparation (through localised community kin work) is key to promoting positive developmental outcomes.
1.3 The Zimbabwean policy landscape: Girls, early unintended pregnancy, education,