DIANA KAMANDE’S FORCED MARRIAGE STORY

di Sara Vendrame, 4H

These are the words that Diana Kamande’s children said when their father entered their bedroom after he stabbed his bride, Diana, 21 times.
In 2013 she managed to survive from the violence suffered from the husband of 10 years that she had to marry because of forced marriage. Her husband came back home drunk and decided to kill her and her children after he chased them away when they just wanted to greet him, after this happened he stabbed himself and died. This led Diana to found an organization to prevent young girls from forced marriage and to help orphans.
A Kamade’s coworker said “Being given the role of being a wife, a mother for those who end up having children, and even the role of being child widows becomes too heavy a burden for them to bear”.
Mostly in poor countries like Kenya young girls suffer forced marriage this causes domestic violence and dehumanized situations. Girls are forced to marry someone who most of the time is way older than them. The causes are religion, poverty, social norms, gender inequality, the parent’s incapacity to provide for their children, but sometimes young girls get married to escape violence from their own parents. In fact girls who are forced into a marriage are first violated by their parents who circumcise them when they are just little girls and then they end up living in a violent context and household.
According to UN Human Rights, forced marriage is a human rights violation and a harmful practice that disproportionately affects women and girls globally. Unfortunately we still hear about stories like Kamade’s.

Sources:

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/child-marriage-rise-horn-africa-drought-crisis-intensifies
https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2023/01/forced-marriage-violation-human-rights
https://nairobiwire.com/2021/04/my-story-my-husband-stabbed-me-with-a-sword-then-
committed-suicide.html