Mozambican religious leaders repudiate use of girls to repay debts

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Mozambican religious leaders repudiate use of girls to repay debts

4:29 CAT | 28 Feb 2017

Unicef Mozambique (File photo) / For illustration purposes only

Religious leaders at a national seminar on preventing and combating premature marriages have rejected the practices of pastors of some religious congregations who encourage the use of virgin girls to pay debts incurred by their parents.

In a debate on the theme “Role of the Family and Society in General in Preventing and Combating Premature Marriages” held on Sunday morning, the last day of the national seminar taking place in Pemba, Cabo Delgado, Albino Mussuei, Secretary General of the Council of Religions of Mozambique (COREM), launched a strong attack on “Satanic agents” infiltrating the ministry of God.

Mussuei said there was no teaching in any of the 73 books of the Bible saying that a virgin could serve for the payment of debts, the forgiveness of sins or secure divine blessing.

“There is nothing in the bible that authorizes a man to use his daughter for the payment of services rendered by the pastor of the congregation that his parents attend,” the COREM Secretary General said.

The practice is quite common, even among practitioners of traditional medicine and particularly in remote areas of the country, due to the financial inability of families to pay.

According to the 2011 Demographic Health Survey, one in two girls in Mozambique gets married before the age of 18, 14 percent of these before the age of 15. Figures from the Ministry of Education and Human Development show that the dropout rate of girls in school increases after 12 years of age.

Faced with the reality still endemic across much of the country, Mussuei said there was an urgent need to intensify education on human rights, values that are almost unknown in thousands of Mozambican families.

Mussuei pointed out, for example, that at birth all children (boys and girls) have rights that must be unconditionally respected, but what happened was the exact opposite, because families themselves fostered some of the practices that undermined the children’s future.

Mussuei advocated empowerment and vocational training as measures that could contribute to reducing the high levels of economic vulnerability affecting families and society.

The speeches revealed the shocking case of a religious congregation in the central province of Zambézia which had to be closed down because a large number of young girls in a body of believers were pregnant, their religious leaders being heavily involved in the abuse.

Source: AIM Moçambique