By Iommie Chiwalo On the morning Memory Mafunga was supposed to sit for her Standard 8 exams in the remotest rural part of Chikwawa district, her mother was not packing books. She was ironing a Chitenje. Next to it, folded neatly under Memory’s bed, was her blue school uniform. One was for the classroom where […]
By Iommie Chiwalo
On the morning Memory Mafunga was supposed to sit for her Standard 8 exams in the remotest rural part of Chikwawa district, her mother was not packing books. She was ironing a Chitenje.
Next to it, folded neatly under Memory’s bed, was her blue school uniform. One was for the classroom where she dreamed of becoming a nurse. The other was for the marriage her uncle had arranged with a 39-year-old businessman from Nchalo Trading Centre.
Regardless of the known facts that marriage is for mature people, the mother and uncles pressed on yet Memory was only 14 years old.
In Malawi, Memory’s story is not rare. According to UNICEF, 42% of girls in Malawi are married before their 18th birthday. But in 2025, Memory’s story took a different turn. And it is turning other stories with it.
It started with hunger. After Memory’s father died in 2023, her mother struggled to pay school fees and buy maize. A relative suggested “kutenga mwamuna” — to get a husband — who could help with groceries and school costs.
“He said I was mature. That I could cook and bear children,” Memory recalls, her voice low as we sit under a baobab tree at her primary school. “I told my teacher I didn’t want to. But at home, no one was listening.”
Child marriage in Malawi is driven by a mix of poverty, cultural practice, pregnancy, and school dropout. The 2017 Marriage Act sets 18 as the minimum age, but enforcement in rural areas remains weak. Girls who drop out often see marriage as their only option.
For Memory, the wedding was set for two weeks after exams. The groom had already paid K200,000 lobola.
What saved Memory was not a police officer. It was her Standard 7 teacher, Mrs. Rosemary Nthenga, and a girls’ club at the school run by a local NGO, Girls Empowerment Network [GENET].
Every Friday, girls at the school meet to talk about rights, menstrual health, and life skills. They are taught about the law and how to report cases.
“When Memory told us, we didn’t wait,” says Mrs Nthenga. “We called the Group Village Headman and GENET.”
Under Malawi’s National Strategy to End Child Marriage 2018-2030, chiefs are key. GVH Khwangwa had signed a bylaw in 2022 banning child marriage in his area. Any parent who marries off a child under 18 faces a fine of a goat and community service.
The chief summoned Memory’s uncle. With support from the District Social Welfare Office, the marriage was annulled. The lobola was returned. Memory went back to school.
Memory’s case is one of 112 child marriages that chiefs in Chikwawa District annulled last year, according to data from the Ministry of Gender.
The strategy is simple but powerful: combine the law with community leadership.
It is in records that over 2,000 girl’s clubs exist in Malawi. They give girls information and a safe space to speak and that more than 200 Traditional Authorities now have bylaws against child marriage.
According to class teacher, Mrs Nthenga, there is also a strategy called “Boys as Allies” whereby boys are also in the club.
“We tell our friends that a wife is not a solution to poverty,” says 15-year-old James, Memory’s classmate. And with the collective effort from different stakeholders girls are kept in school. For example GENET and government provide sanitary pads, bursaries, and meals to reduce dropout.
Dr. Ruth Mpinganjira, a gender officer at the Ministry of Gender, says this community model is central to national progress.
“We cannot arrest our way out of this. We must change minds in the village,” she says.
At national level, government says it is scaling up that same approach.
Hon. Mary Navicha, Minister of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, says ending child marriage is a priority under the Malawi 2063 Agenda.
Navicha: let your daughter finish school
“To every parent: let your daughter finish school first. To every chief: enforce your bylaws. Government will meet you halfway with social protection and education support,” Minister Navicha said.
“We are working with the police, chiefs, schools, and faith leaders to ensure no girl is left behind. But we also need communities to report cases. Silence is what keeps this practice alive,”
The Minister notes that gaps remain. Birth registration is still low in some districts, and there are not enough Social Welfare Officers especially in the child protection unit so as to respond quickly to reports.
But on a positive note, Government, she says, is recruiting more officers and strengthening district child protection committees.
UNICEF warns that without continued investment in education and social protection, progress could reverse, especially as poverty pressures increase.
Eighteen months later, Memory is in Form 2 at Nkhwangwa Community Day Secondary School. She still wants to be a nurse. She is also a peer educator in the girls’ club.
“Now when other girls are told to get married, they come to me first,” she says, smiling. “I tell them: your uniform is more powerful than any chitenje.”
Her mother now sells vegetables at the market. She says she regrets almost losing her daughter.
“I thought I was helping. But I was stealing her future,” she says.
Back at the school, the bell rings. Memory grabs her books, not the chitenje.
Ending child marriage in Malawi will not happen in a courtroom alone. It will happen under mango trees, in chiefs’ courtyards, in classrooms like this one, and in policy rooms in Lilongwe.
It will happen when a teacher picks up the phone. When a chief enforces a bylaw. When a Minister commits resources. And when a mother chooses a uniform over a wedding.
As GVH Khwangwa puts it: “A child in marriage is a community that has failed. A child in school is a community that has hope.”
For Memory, that hope now has a name. And a future.
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