Agony of Cross River community girls married off at infancy by indebted parents

MUDIAGA AFFE writes about money woman, a marriage culture in Becheve in the Obanliku Local Government Area of Cross River State, where indebted parents give out their daughters in marriage to creditors

A four-hour lonely walk in the thick forest of one of the mountainous Becheve communities in the Obanliku Local Government Area of Cross River State is enough to elicit goosebumps on a brave fighter because of the risk of wild animals.

But such couldn’t frighten 14-year-old Rachael Ayan, who, on May 5, this year, fled her husband’s home in Keyi community at an odd hour of 10pm to free herself from the anguish of being a ‘money woman’ having being betrothed to the man at age five.

Money woman is the term used to describe a girl who is ‘sold’ to a man by the girl’s parents in form of marriage without her consent or knowledge in order to pay a debt, usually borrowed before the unlucky girl was born.

Narrating her story with teary eyes to our correspondent, Ayan said it would be a good thing to end the practice for her to go to school.

She said, “I got to know that I have been sold when I was five. Since then, I have been living with the husband who was about 50 years old then. I have been staying with him and he has been treating me like a slave. He didn’t buy me any clothes. I have been responsible for my own upkeep even in his house.

“I sell banana to raise money. I also have three different cassava farms where I also raise money from. At the end of every planting season, I sometimes make N4, 000 and the man takes N2,000 out of it. The man has refused to take care of me because I believe he does not like me and I also do not like him. Whenever I see other girls in my shoes, I feel sorry for them. I am not a happy person because I ought to be in school.

“About two years ago, he made the first attempt to have carnal knowledge of me but I resisted it and told him bluntly that I was not mature for it. But he insisted and forcefully made love to me. He told me that his brother’s wife, who was my age mate, was already making love.

“I had to run out of his house on May 5, 2018 at about 10pm. I trekked in the forest for about four hours in the midnight and descended the hilltop. By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, I slept in an unprotected Catholic church from the early hours of the morning till dawn and continued my journey until I got to a mission house for succour. I do not want to go back here. I have a sister, Lovett, who was sold for about N30,000.”

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