Woman Vs. Tradition

Theresa Kachindamoto                                                                                                 UN Women

Theresa Kachindamoto, the youngest of 12 children, was a secretary at a city college when she got the call. The chiefs had named her the next senior chief in her home Dedza district of Malawi. That was in 2003, and since then, this mother of five has worked tirelessly to end child marriage in a country that, in 2012, was ranked by the United Nations as being eighth out of the 20 countries with the highest child-marriage rates. It is also one of the world's poorest countries, and early marriage is seen as a way of alleviating families' financial strain. In her effort to get children ~ and particularly girls ~ back in school, Kachindamoto has changed laws, annulled marriages, fired chiefs, and worked with community members and local committees. "First of all it was difficult, but now people are understanding," she says: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/03/malawi-fearsome-chief-terminator-child-marriages-160316081809603.html