Africa-Press – Mozambique. A 29-year-old Chinese national is being held by the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) in Nampula, accused of marrying a 15-year-old girl in Monapo district.
The defendant, who has confessed, says that he was only able to cement his ” premature union” with the minor on the third attempt, the first two having failed. The third attempt was only successful when the girl started spending money on her family.
“This girl came to where I was working, and when I saw her I liked her. I asked where her house was and I went there,” the man said. “I found the mother and grandmother and I told them I liked the girl, and they told me she wasn’t there, but to come back when the house owner was there.”
The offender says that he was employed in road construction in Netia administrative post, where the events unfolded, and that he covered the family’s expenses for the duration of the relationship.
The girl’s mother, whose identity is being withheld, reveals that the case only reached the attention of the authorities because demands made on her “son-in-law” by the community leader and by the director of the local public school were not satisfied.
The girl’s mother. [Photo. Herminio Raja / Jornal Ikweli]Mother of the victim
The community leader demanded 10,000 meticais to support the union, while the school director wanted no less than 100,000 meticais to remain silent about the criminal act.
Keeping company with her “son-in-law” in the police cells, the mother says that “[the man] came to ask for the child’s hand and left. When he returned, I said that she is still a child. I said wait, because here in my land children don’t marry” so let’s at least wait for the child to go through the initiation rites. So he left, and came back three months later, and we accepted. He started buying her notebooks and a uniform, so we submitted her to the initiation rites.”
Transferred from the Monapo PRM district command to provincial command , the accused was sent to the 1st Police Station in the provincial capital, where he was presented to the press.
Dércio Samuel, head of the Public Relations Department at the PRM command in Nampula, said that the case was made public thanks to tip-offs by the population, and urged communities to report cases of this nature.
“As soon as the police became aware of the case at district level, they activated mechanisms aimed at locating the individual and rescuing the minor,” Samuel said, noting that the offender had claimed to have “got engaged [noivou] to the minor with parental consent”.
Law No. 19/2019, of 2 October, Law for the Prevention and Combat of Premature Marriages, defines in paragraph 1 of article 2 that “premature marriage is the connection between people, in which at least one is a child, formed for the purpose immediate or future of founding a family”, and in article 8 establishes the prohibition of its celebration.
By Aunício da Silva
