Celestina Uguru was 13 when she was given out in marriage. It was not a decision taken with her consent. Celestina had just returned from farm one evening; tired, hungry and exhausted from farm gleaning; as she prepared to take a rest for the day, her father called to inform her that she would be married the next day.
“When my father told me that I will marry, I was thinking of running away from the house that night, then my father told me that he cannot feed me again and that getting married was the best thing for me so that I can have someone that can be feeding me” she looked intensely on her sun beaten skin and whispered aloud: “my father pushed me into marriage because there is no food”. Fearful and unable to resist the marriage proposition, she was married to a man in his 40s.
Celestina became a young wife when she should be in school, she recounts the serial abuses, denials, regrets and frustration she experienced: “As a young wife, my experience was very bad, even my husband does not work, I will be the one to go to farm, cook the food, and fetch water and he will still beat me. One day he beat me to the point that I was almost blind” she struggled to narrate the painful ordeal.
The young mother had already adjusted to the abuse: “I was already used to the marriage because of my 6 children, I don’t want them to suffer, I want them to go to school, I don’t want them to suffer and not go to school, so I decided to stay in the marriage and work so that I can send my children to school”.
When Celestina joined the Women Peer Education group in the community, her life took a new turn: “It was when I joined the women group that I learned a lot of things, my attitude changed, I respect people now, I use to be a troublesome woman before, I also learned about nutrition; I don’t know that you have to use salt to wash vegetables before cooking, I didn’t know I have to wash my hands before cooking, my hygiene has also improved” she said.
Celestina is an elected women leader of a political party in her community; she is first in her family to hold an elected political position: “If ActionAid and PDA didn’t come to our community, I will still be in deep darkness, I will not know anything. If ActionAid didn’t come, my husband will still be beating me, I would not have been able to build a house, train my children, I would just have been at home without participating in politics” she said.