I lived through child marriage. Here’s why it must end.

*TRIGGER WARNING* descriptions of sexual violence.

When I was 13, I went on what I thought was a normal visit to my aunt and uncle in Bikita, a district in the Masvingo Province of Zimbabwe. The first three days went as expected, but on the fourth day, I was lying in the guest bedroom when David, my aunt’s 55-year-old husband, came in and locked the door from inside. He raped me over and over again — God knows how many times. I whimpered and whimpered to my fullest but no one, not one of David’s seven wives or many children, who were in the home came to help me.

Little did I know that, in their minds, despite my age, I was David’s newest bride. It dawned on me that I wasn’t visiting: my parents had married me off to my aunt’s husband, much in the way I’d seen other girls my age married off to older men in our Johanne Marange Apostolic Church community at home in Bikita.

When David was done, he pulled up his pants and left. After a while, my aunt came into the room and helped me clean and nurse my wounds; my vagina wall was torn. David resumed assaulting me one week later, and two months after that, I discovered that I was pregnant. With the help from two elderly women from our church, I gave birth to a baby boy. Two days later, the infant mysteriously died.

To understand what drove my parents to marry off their daughter at such a young age, it’s important to understand the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church. As in many sects of Christianity, women’s virginity is given extreme importance. In this sect, however, this is taken to an extreme: It is considered the norm for young girls to have their virginity tested and scrutinized in church meetings. As one anonymous survivor of the sect revealed, her mother would check and test her virginity by watching and inserting her finger underneath whenever she felt like it. If a girl is determined to no longer be a virgin, her family’s reputation is harmed in the church.

Because of these norms, religious leaders in the sect have come to believe that girls can’t be trusted to stay virgins, and therefore marrying them at an early age protects their virginity until marriage. Parents adhere to this, because they also don’t want to be shamed in their community by the possibility of their daughter losing her virginity before marriage.

Another motivation for child marriage in this community is to avoid exposing young girls to men outside of the church, or men who are infected with HIV. As one of the leaders of Johanne Marange pointed out in an interview, men who do not belong to the church often seek sexual satisfaction outside their marriages, which increases the risk of HIV transmission. But institutionalized polygamy prevents that.

In the patriarchal family structure which is common within both the church and Zimbabwean society, men dominate women in all aspects of their relationship, including making decisions about when and whom their daughter will marry, and, therefore, when and how she will have sex. They have statuses within the church structure, and the exchange of daughters allows these men to maintain this power structure. Child marriages therefore come as a way to maintain or alter men’s economic power through lobola. Many families need a bride price, which on average, costs between $1,000 and $2,000 to feed, clothe, educate, and house the rest of their family.

Of course, no matter their reasons, child marriage is inexcusable. In addition to conferring physical and emotional abuse, it compromises a child’s overall development, socially isolates them, and leaves them with little or no education, skills, and opportunities for employment, making them vulnerable to enduring poverty as a result. For these reasons, the criminal law in Zimbabwe clearly states that it is a criminal offense for girls under 18 to marry. The law also provides that any adult man who has sexual relations with a child between ages 12 and 15 is guilty of statutory rape because children in this age group are considered incapable of giving consent.

Despite this law, though, members of the church cover for one another in such a way that nobody reports the child marriages that persist in this community. Johanne Marange is not the only Apostolic church that abuses women and girls; there are other Apostolic sects in Zimbabwe like Johanne Masowe and African Apostolic Church. To create real change, the communities involved with these sects need to be educated and empowered to view child marriages for what they really are: sexual abuse and exploitation. There is also a need for a deeper engagement between the government, nongovernment sectors, and Apostolic sect leaders over child marriages and adherence to national laws on women and children’s rights.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Children in these Apostolic churches are socialized from birth in a way that girls should marry at an early age. Some NGOs and other human rights groups are encountering resistance from children and parents themselves.

After all the hardships that I have come across under the shadow of religion, I have learned that being married at a young age has meant learning to endure a lot of suffering — in terms of my economic position, and beyond. As a result, I have decided to quit going to church — even if it means that I could become a sinner as perceived in the sect.