Atuki said that many a women for whom bride price was paid can never go back to her father’s home even when their husbands mistreat them. If they risked, their parents will culturally send them back to their husbands since most families don’t want to pay back the bride price. After all, it is always shared among relatives immediately.

Atuki said in most marriages in Teso region where the MIFUMI project is active, contracts are signed indicating that bride price will be paid back if the woman is to leave her husband.

“We have found that women for whom bride price is not paid are freer to go back to their father’s home if the marriage fails. But even then, it is difficult to have a good marriage if bride price isn’t paid for you because society always threatens you with banishment or failing your marriage since you are not paid for. So for most women, bride price is a practice you are damned if you go for it, and damned if you don’t,” Njogu said.

Like the case is in Uganda, Ature said that 40% of the women interviewed in the Kenya survey whose bride price had not been paid lived in fear since they would never get rights to benefit from their husband’s property or wouldn’t be buried (properly) if they died.

“In Meru, a woman recently committed suicide because she was being abused by her husband but her family rejected her because bride price had not been paid for her,” Ature said.

She said bride price is also increasing the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (female circumcision) as parents rush to circumcise their daughters (as a cultural passage to maturity) in order to marry them off and get bride price.

Monica Luwundo from the Tanzania Media Women’s Association said that many people in Tanzania have also expressed desire to see bride price reformed.

“In our survey, men too were concerned about bride price. Some are required top pay up to 30 cows. Women are concerned about the requirement for refund. Young girls expressed concern that their rights are being violated and it is increasing HIV infection as young girls go for sugar daddies to get money to give to their boyfriends to pay bride price. We found that some men are refusing to look after their wives saying the money was spent on bride price. Yet a lot of importance is still attached to bride price in Tanzania. Many men would rather pay bride price than spend money to send kids to school. Parents are forcing their girl children out of school and marrying them off to get bride price, especially to get bicycles,” Luwundo revealed.

Mumele Lingiswa from the Western Cape Network fighting Violence Against Women in South Africa said that while bride price has brought a lot of misery to many women, it is the old women who continue to pressure for the bride price practice to continue. Many people also question the reality of abolishing bride price, which is a valued cultural practice, which doesn’t result in violence in many tribes like Buganda where it is a gift.

“In a survey carried out in South Africa, many people didn’t want to abolish bride price but only to reform it to its original intention of a marriage gift unlike today when it is demanded as a price. In South Africa, there are more violence cases in white and colored communities than in the back community which ask for bride price,” Lingiswa said.

That is why some people are insisting that while bride price needs to be reformed, and that it may lead to or increase domestic violence, there are other strong causes of domestic violence.

“ There are some good aspects of bride price, which we would like to continue. But there are those negative ones that should be done away with. It should be a gift not demanded and not refunded,” says Grace Lwanga who works with the Mifumi project in Tororo.

But many participants expressed concern that Women in Africa continue to support Bride Price because many believe that bride price makes women to be of value.

Ature calls for a human rights based approach to fighting bride price in a way that shows the rights deprivation as a result of the practice but also encompassing community sensitization and empowerment. “We need to also get leaders on board in the fight against bride price so that there is community ownership which is the only way we can bring about legal and policy change,” she said.

Fr. Paul Okothi from Tororo Diocese said that if the campaign against negative bride price is to be successful, the activists should focus on men, children, the youth and religious leaders. “We may need a moral voice to it,” Fr. Okothi said.

By Gerald Businge, Ultimate Media

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