(energetic drumming) (narrator) These girls are the lucky ones.

In spite of overwhelming odds, they have escaped their forced marriages.

Until their rescue, these girls had no say.

They were seen as little more than barter.

Forced marriage is a global issue that crosses all ethnicities and borders for a variety of reasons.

Protecting perceived religious or cultural norms, controlling worth, or a misguided attempt to escape poverty.

Forced and underage marriages take place in many countries, even First World countries, but is especially prevalent in a number of Asian and African nations.

Escaping a forced marriage is difficult, but there is change taking place.

One example of that change is in Malawi, a beautiful country in Southeast Africa where people are struggling against centuries of tradition, determined to develop a new cultural reality.

(singing in Malawi language) (insects chirring) (flames crackling) (Yamikani) Life in the village in Malawi for girls is--is very hard.

She has to wake up in the morning, say, as early as 2:00 a.m. She has to go and fetch water.

It's a long distance for her to walk, and come back home maybe 4:00 a.m. She goes to the farm and she's working there all the way to 7:00.

Already she's late to go up to school.

And most of the times, there was no food in the home.

Oppression for girls in Malawi starts, really, at a very tender age.

And it's in everything.

It's in, uh, the way they interact with the community, and their friends, and their parents.

Worldwide, underaged marriage is at 20%, but in Malawi it's much higher.

(narrator) In Malawi, 42% of girls are married before the age of 18, and almost one in 10 are married before their 15th birthday.

There is intense pressure from family, from society.

There is no option to say no.

In a world where forced marriage is too often accepted, what can be done to stop it?

Can the churches, the government, the human rights activists do something?

(children shouting) (Shadreck) Malawi's predominantly a Christian nation.

But if you look at, uh, the early missionaries that, uh, come to Malawi, they never addressed the issue of, you know, women's rights and-- and girls' rights, because, of course, that was a nonexistent thing then.

And so these cultures have existed well before the missionaries came, and have, you know, uh, over the ages and the years, still been, uh, in practice.

If you have to have impact on the ground, you look at who are the opinion leaders on the ground.

And looking at the way our society is set up, the chiefs got a lot of-- a lot of authority.

Um, we have chiefs.

Chiefs in our villages in Malawi are the custodians of culture.

We strongly feel that we need to work with the chiefs.

So, when the chiefs are convinced, then it's easier for them to convince the rest of the people in the village.

(Shadreck) Malawi has several chiefs working alongside the government.

But one of the chiefs who is in the forefront is Chief Theresa Kachindamoto.

I'm Senior Chief Theresa Kachindamoto.

For me, I didn't even dream that one day I will be a chief because our culture, Ngoni culture, says a woman cannot be a chief.

When the royal family came to Zomba to ask me to come here to be a chief, so I said, "No.

Look at me, I am a woman.

Your culture said a woman cannot be a chief.

How will you change your culture?"

They said, "No, no, no, no.

We have chosen you to be a chief because you will change this culture one day."

Then I go into the room, I kneel down, and pray to God that it's you who will make me to be a good chief.

So, please help me, because I'm still young, I don't know how I can do it, but it's honoring you who gives me a path to go.

I saw a girl, this ground over here, I saw a girl with a baby, that that baby was crying.

So I said, "Why can't she take that baby to her mom?"

Said, "No, this baby's mine."

I said, "Uh-uh.

Yours?

Why?

How old are you?"

Then she said, "I'm 13 years old.

I'll be 14 next month."

Then it pains me.

A young girl, she don't know anything.

She's too young to have a baby.

Sometimes culture must be stopped.

My recent film is called Nyasaland.

Whilst filming Nyasaland, I met a young girl.

She was 14.

And out of school.

She's married.

She's got two daughters.

When I looked at the husband, the husband was way, way older than this girl.

And this girl cannot actually sit around her fellow, you know, girls, like age-mates.

They can't.

What are they going to be talking about?

It simply means their statuses have completely changed and it's different from the rest.

So, basically, she's here, she's down-to-earth poor.

Like, she's even failing to take care of her children.

In my country, boys are better than girls, okay?

I will tell you this, that a girl would wake up early morning and do the chores.

Most--because that's how our family setup is.

And so a girl does not have much opportunity as the boys would have.

Um, girls, most girls would not complete Standard 8, which is the primary school leaving certificate, their final grade in primary school.

And in some cases, like, for instance, there was a school in Nsanje District, in Standard 7, there was not even a single girl.

The whole primary school, not a single girl.

So, some years ago, uh, the Malawian Parliament passed a law.

They said from the age of 16 to 18 girls could get married with parental consent.

It left a loophole, because the parents could still arrange the marriage for the girl without her consent.

It did leave that huge gap.

It did leave the girl child still outside of the discussion rather than someone who is part of the process and part of the conversation.

(McKnight) We had to do quite a lot of work to take care of that loophole.

There was that debate to say 16, if you say a child is a person below the age of 16, what are we doing for those that are between 16 and 18?

So, this was the time, as a journalist, I said, "No, we just have to make sure that government listen to this."

So we formed a group of journalists whereby we are writing stories on the evils of forced marriage, because this is one of the things that has put Malawi backwards.

There was a huge campaign from the media, from the human rights organization, from the chiefs like Chief Kachindamoto, who stood and tell them off.

This is the future of the country, and we just have to stop this.

I remember there were like three times the bill was sent off because, you know, people, like, administrators were not comfortable to--to pass that bill.

And most people will say, "No, you cannot-- you cannot pass this without a referendum.

But there's also a provision which says if two-thirds of the members of Parliament who are sitting in Parliament on the day the bill is debated vote yes for the change, the constitution can change.

So, it did happen.

And I was a witness.

I was in Parliament covering our minister that day, so I saw the drama, I witnessed it.

The government passed that, that bill, and the members of Parliament did.

And it's exciting to--to note that, uh, I think 70% of the members of Parliament are men, and sort of see them as role model, to see them as doing something.

I think we need to stand up as men, as a community, to be part of this solution.

(narrator) Malawi was able to accomplish this goal in spite of enormous opposition.

A Third World country has done what many First World countries have struggled to do.

Many are surprised to learn that forced marriage occurs in the United States, often for reasons of religious tradition.

Some states have succeeded in banning underage marriage.

For example, a bipartisan bill in the state of Idaho created a minimum marriage age of 16.

Texas, a state that had the second-highest child marriage rate, succeeded in banning marriage below the age of 18.

However, their law contains the same loophole that Malawi has now closed, allowing parental consent between the ages of 16 and 18.

(Yamikani) Those decision makers, they were able to pass a law whereby, um, early marriages have to be stopped, like a man is not supposed to marry this girl until she's 18, she's come of age.

And this happened because these lawmakers, uh, took--took charge.

(Shadreck) But if you go into the rural areas, the story is different, because in communities, the chiefs are the law.

The parliament sometimes doesn't hold any water, and it's okay with the community.

Of course, we have instances where both are children, but mostly, it's the older men marrying underage girls.

So I said, "I'm here to terminate these marriages, whether anyone want or not."

Then my chiefs, all my chiefs, they came here.

Then that time, we have memorandum of understanding.

Everyone sign it.

Then, we write down our bylaws, that we chiefs, that from today, we don't want this thing to continue in our area.

The age is 18-above.

Below 18, no more marriage.

If anyone, any chief, allows these arranged marriages, that chief must be dismissed.

So it was after three months when the pastor called me.

"Chief, are you at home?"

I said, "Oh, yes."

"Oh, thank you.

Here, there are five chiefs, but some, they are coming.

They want me to do their marriages.

But when I see in my register book the age is below 14.

So what can I do, Chief?"

I said, "Oh, you ask me, 'What can I do, Chief?'

You.

I thought you have signed those bylaws."

"Oh, yes, Chief."

"So what did the bylaws say?"

So when I go there, first of all, I ask them their age.

Some of them, "I'm 19!"

I said, "Oh, thank you."

They get all, "Oh, I will be 20 next month."

"You--you will be 20.

Okay."

Then I said, "Okay.

Which church?"

Group over there, can you give me register book?"

Then the group-- when I go there, they have all taken those register books, because they know that I will ask them the age of this girl or these boys and girls.

They said, "Okay, there it is," and this family, it's here.

Their first-born, it's so many years.

Second-born, so many years.

Third-born, so many years.

This is the second-born.

Right now, she has, "Born in 2-0-so-so."

Right now, her age is 12 years or 13 years.

Am I wrong?

Is this--this true?

It's you who came to me to say, "I want to register my family."

So this is it.

Then, after two weeks, I call all of them again to come here.

When they came, I call all those village heads, said, "Okay, from today, you are no more chiefs until you go there and terminate those marriages.

If you terminate those marriages, then you will be back to your chief status.

But from today, no more chiefs.

You group of village head men.

Please take care of my people there."

From that time, they know, "Oh, this chief, they don't want any nonsense, so I must be careful."

But they can't fight with her, because she's a chief and she has the authority.

Inasmuch as they don't agree with her, Chief Kachindamoto's work has been given a lot of coverage in the international media.

She has nullified more than 2,000 child marriages, and she's very unapologetic about it.

"Look.

The stupid royal family.

They choose this woman.

Look now what she's doing.

We have the rights with our girls."

I said, "Oh yes, you have the rights, 100 percent of the rights.

But for me, I have authority, to you, and also to your child."

Because I have secret mothers, these secret mothers they are the eyes of me.

There are two aspects to law enforcement.

In terms of our structuring on the ground, we have community policing forums... (McKnight) ...where you are handling issues of older men against the younger girls.

That's a police case.

For bigger men marrying young girls, I-I go straight to police.

But when I phone, you must come very, very quickly, if he talk any nonsense there.

Yes, because I have already arranged that cant you be ashamed?

for four groups, so I want to visit them.

"You have taken a small girl like this."

"Yeah, but I have paid two goats, and I have given them 50,000 kwacha to have this girl."

"It's up to you, you go there to claim your 50,000 kwacha or your two goats.

But you're a fool.

You are stupid."

Then, when I finish that, the police was there, officer.

"Chief, who is the man?"

I said, "Oh, this stupid man, here..." "Okay.

Who is your chief?"

"My chief is Kachindamoto."

"Okay, yes, we have our bylaws.

We want to take you to our police station, and you will go to court tomorrow, because you have married a young girl below 18."

And at the end of the day, we see more and more girls being sent from these child marriages.

Otherwise, if you rely solely on the police, the question would be, how many parents would you arrest?

Um, there are some traditionalists who would want to keep it the way it was before.

That's why you have these secret societies with initiation ceremonies, and what happens in these initiation ceremonies mostly is to teach girls, so girls as young as 10 years old, as young as 12 years old, to prepare them for marriage.

Because culture, they said a girl, when she's about six, seven, eight years, she's big enough, she can go into marriage.

I said, "No, I can't allow that thing to happen."

So you find young girls, you know, going to what is called chinamwali, where they go and they're being prepared for womanhood.

And most of these girls, when they get out of this chinamwali-- it's an initiation, in English-- when they get out of chinamwali, they usually don't go back to school.

Most of them actually go straight into marriages, because that's what they're taught to do in those initiation camps.

As part of the graduation ceremony, the village, through the chief, would hire a man to sleep with these girls as a way of introducing them to what happens, or preparing them for marriage.

When I was in Form 3, I want to go with my fellow girls, they have initiation.

So when I go there, and my father would not even know anything, so when he knows that I have already gone there, he goes there straight and ask those people that, "Please, I want my girl back.

I don't want that girl to be in that initiation."

Then when I came out, I ask him why.

"My fellow girls, they are all there.

So why did you call me to be with you?"

He said, "No, no, no, I don't want those things.

Because I have already talked to these chiefs that I don't want this culture to continue."

You know, my wife tells me of a story, um, her father had told them never to attend the initiation ceremonies.

At some point, her sister had gone to the village, and the father was not there, the mother was not there, and she was sort of captured.

And when she was captured, she was taken to initiation ceremony.

And when a girl has gone into the initiation ceremony, you know, this is a place that's hidden or that's away from the village, no man can go there.

It's a huge taboo.

You are going against the village, you are going against sisters, somehow.

You're going against, you know, what's...what's seen as the norm.

And people never respect you.

You are treated as an outcast.

So, her sister is taken into the initiation, and the father hears, and he gets on a bus, and he goes into this secret location, grabs the daughter by her hand and drags her out.

And he went against this tradition, and he stood his ground.

And so, none of his daughters went through the initiation ceremony.

In Nyasaland, I actually address issues of the hyena.

The hyena in Malawi is a man who actually sexually cleanses young girls.

It's called kusasa fumbi, in our local language, and this hyena man is actually paid to cleanse these young girls.

So you can think about girls aged between 11 to 13, somewhere there, that are being cleansed by this hyena.

They choose a place like in the forest, so I go there and I attend that initiation.

They book a house.

All those girls, they sleep in one house.

They have tied their eyes with cloth, all of them.

There are about 44 girls.

Then they are all shocked to see me.

"Ah!

Why, Chief?"

I said, "Okay.

Oh, I want to be with my girls.

So, why, what is... Is there anything wrong for me to talk to my girls or to be with my girls?"

"Oh, no, no, no, Chief."

Then I call all the women who are looking at those girls.

"Is there any function this evening?"

They said, "Oh yes, Chief.

You know, when they have come from initiation, we must see who is a good girl, and those men reported to us that this girl is good, this girl is good."

Then I found out there's a drum.

(makes drumming noises) Then they're singing songs.

Singing that those men, they are coming to make sex with these girls.

Those... mothers.

They told those men that, "Hey, their Chief is inside this room."

"Why?"

She's the Chief, she must be at her headquarters.

So, why are she here?

We are doing culture so, what is she doing here?

Then after that, they all ran away.

Then after that, I tell the girls that, "Please take off your... your mask."

And they take off their masks and I said, "Each of you, you must go to your parents."

Then they said, "Oh, thank you, Chief, thank you, Chief, thank you, Chief."

Then they all go to their parents.

Then I said, "Okay, thank you.

Now I'm going to my headquarters."

"But, Chief, what do we have done?

It's not good."

I said, "Okay, it's not good to you because you received something from these girls, but now, there's this epidemic of HIV AIDS."

Did they know-- Did you know that all... all of them, they are good?

Did you know their status?

So, you want my girls to be infected by HIV AIDS?

Never.

That culture must be stopped from today onwards.

I mean, we are living in an age whereby HIV and AIDS is rampant and you have an older man, maybe 30 years' difference with the girls, sleeping with these girls.

(Shadreck) There was a story that came out through the BBC and afterward, it got on Al-Jazeera and different other media outlets.

You know, the story of a man who was hired by a village to sleep with girls who had gone through the initiation ceremony and this man was HIV positive and how much that he had infected a lot of girls through the ceremony.

I am your chief, but I don't want this culture to continue.

Ah, why?

Because you are chief?

So that whatever you say when just say... eh eh?

Who are you?

You want to die soon, chief?

You are too young.

I said, "Uh-oh, you want me to die?

You want to kill me?

Wait until I finish my mission.

Then when I finish my mission, you can do whatever you want to do to me."

But God will receive me with two hands.

But you, you will go straight to the hell.

It's very difficult for a girl to say no to an arranged marriage because, in the first place, it's the elders in the village, the parents, that are telling her to do that and she has been taught to respect the elders, you know, the whole of her life.

I can say, a large percentage of girls wouldn't say no.

It's either they are forced out of the household of their parents' or whoever their guardian is.

They'll say, "Because you have refused to do this, you are no longer staying in my house."

On the issues of any marriage, you should not only look at the traditional leaders, but I feel like even religious leaders should take a stand against this 'cause people go to church, people go to mosques.

So, they should involve themselves.

They should take a stand on these issues.

Sometimes, it's very crucial for pastors to say no because, for a wedding to happen, it's not just one person.

So, the parents have consented, the community has consented, they're going to the church to have their marriage authenticated.

You know they have married when they are young, they don't know anything.

They are beating their wives.

And when they ask him, "Where are you?

Where have you gone out?

Where are you?

You can go to your mother."

Things like that and they beat those girls sometimes not giving them any food.

And, "We have buy you, we gave your parents a goat, or, "We give your parents money."

Things like that.

They think as if they are slaves.

(narrator) The pressure on the girls to conform is intense.

Many girls find themselves pregnant, whether due to ignorance about birth control or outright rape.

Their families would not allow them to remain unmarried, which can put the girls in a position where they are forced to marry their rapist.

And, most of the times, these men are abusive.

They are beating her and she's losing her dignity, she's losing so much.

They just get resigned to their situation.

They just feel like, "Okay, this is my situation.

This is my cup of tea.

Let me just deal with it.

Let me just live like this."

There's this song in the local language where they're taught to be patient.

We say: (speaking native language) You just have to persevere, to endure, whatever.

It doesn't matter.

They'll still blame you for whatever is happening in your marriage.

So, add onto that, there's a problem of-- there was--no, there still is the problem of HIV and AIDS, which was very prevalent in the '90s.

We're talking about almost 10 percent of our country was infected by HIV and we had, at that moment, of, I think, a million orphaned children because of HIV.

And Malawi is just a country of, at the moment, 17 million people.

And so, this also brought in a lot of difficulties for the girl child because it advances the idea of having her to marry her, to get rid of her.

She must go somewhere where somebody's gonna take care of her and feed her other than for the family that's taking care of her to go through that struggle of feeding one extra mouth.

Um, I work as a manager at Kanyenyeva Ministries.

Kanyenyeva Ministries is an organization that takes care of orphans and vulnerable children.

Mostly orphans.

With this huge number of orphans that we have, most of the times, some orphans didn't have anybody to take them on board and so, there are some that have relatives and relations that would take them on board.

If a child does not have both parents and there's not any close relative, we make sure that the chiefs or somebody closer would be responsible for that child.

Alinafe was taken by an aunt who was a sister to the mother and she was taken there and was staying in the home and this--and the aunt was married to some man and they have their own children as well.

And so, Alinafe is like an added child in the family.

And Alinafe was one of the girls who was in the scholarship program that we provide.

She's living with this family.

There is this girl who is 16 years old and she's been married off to a man twice her age.

She has no choice, she has no money, she has no parents.

(narrator) A girl who says no may be subjected to violence, beaten, or shunned by her family.

Even her family, who would prefer to keep their daughter in school, because of unexpected circumstances, may be forced to make a difficult choice.

And so, Malawi is very patriarchal, where men believe that they have the right, for example, to their brothers' or cousins' worth, that the woman in the house does not have any power over the materials.

A man and a woman who are married and they're staying together and they have children in the home, say five children, that they're taking care of together, and then, suddenly, the husband dies and then comes in an issue of property grabbing.

And, so, some of these girls will go back home to their mother.

Remember, this is where the problem came from.

This is the mother who sent her to marry.

Programs are there to send back these girls that have gone through early marriages back to school, but most of the times, when they go back to school, they meet a lot of challenges.

There are these friends that are laughing at them.

They're saying, "You're a mother, you're not--you're not one of us."

(Yamikani) Some of the teachers would feel like, "Ah, this girl is used to sex, is used to, uh, sleeping with men because she was married before," and the teachers would want to harass her sexually.

And other people maybe in the village would also want to harass this girl.

And, so, she is at risk as it is.

So, sometimes, the teachers, they do force girls to--into sex.

And, then, if the girl doesn't accept that, she reports it to, for instance, the female teacher role model.

I've experienced a lot of issues to do with sexual abuse and harassment that happens in school which go unreported, or if they get reported, you see that justice is delayed or is denied.

There was this other girl who found herself in this situation whereby the male teacher was harassing her.

I liked this girl because she was courageous enough.

She reported the issue to the authority.

Unfortunately, maybe, I feel like she wasn't helped because, later on, there wasn't justice for her.

So, I tried with my colleagues because I said that I'm a teacher, so I tried with my colleagues to get justice for this girl.

At the end of the day, I don't know if it was just a coincidence, but I and my friend who tried to take up the issue were transferred to another school.

(narrator) Sometimes, the girls are lucky, and the chief demands better treatment within the schools in their district.

It is our--our duty as people who are working with these girls to be able to make sure that if this girl is out of this place, she needs to be rescued from this situation.

She needs to have a place where she can go and concentrate on her education.

She needs to be at a place where she's not being scorned.

She--psychologically, she has to be okay.

And physically, she also has to be okay in order to be able to concentrate on her education.

Those mother groups, they move around the communities.

They talk to parents, they talk to the chiefs, and then they talk to the girls themselves, and they encourage the mother.

A girl, if she's pregnant, must stay with her parent.

Then, when she give birth, she must breastfeed that baby.

Then, after that, she must go to school.

Please, if the baby is crying, then you can go there and ask the headmaster.

Then she can go out and breastfeed the baby.

Then, after that, the mother can take the baby back home, and the girl must go back to school.

That is what we are doing here.

I know for sure that there are girls who have been married and they cannot divorce their husbands no matter what they do because the husbands say, "You know, I bought you with 50 cows.

I bought you with one million.

You can't get out.

If you want to go out, then you should give me back my cows."

And they are trapped in this, they're trapped in these marriages.

In all the marriage setups, you have a ceremony of some sort and usually, it's an exchange of words, conversation, animals, chickens.

A chicken is very much part of every-- we call it "chinkhoswe," chinkhoswe ceremony.

The uncles and the brothers are negotiating on behalf of the bride and the bridegroom.

(singing in native language) (Nelly) It will be the girl's side to decide how much they need to get from the man's side.

They feel like if they marry their child, they will--they will find something, they will gain something, they will have benefits out of that.

(Shadreck) Sometimes, the exchange of chickens and goats is symbolic in a traditional marriage setup.

(Shadreck) But, sometimes, whatever is given from the family of the bridegroom is something that is solid, something that is part of her contract, and that has to be given back if you want to nullify the marriage, and it's like you're buying the bride.

"Lobola," as it is called, is a bride price really.

Lobola, to me, is selling a girl to a man without her consent, yeah.

When it's arranged, usually it's not-- it's done in the absence of the girl.

The parents or maybe uncles to the girl, they will just negotiate with the man and come to a certain agreed amount.

(Theresa) And if you continue to say, "Hey, I will have given them a goat, they must bring back our goat," never.

It's your stupidness.

That's why you give them then a goat.

Don't ever take anything to give them back.

It's their stupidness what they have done.

Keep that goat.

Even in some of the schools that we visited, some of the boys are saying, "No, you people are being unfair.

You are doing so much for the girls.

We feel left behind."

We need to look at where are the boys also trailing so that there are enrichment services, not only looking at the girls.

For the girls, in terms of education, yes, they are behind in terms of access in upper primary compared to the time when I went to college myself.

There were very, very few girls in our college.

Maybe one girl for 20 boys.

But, now, it's around four to ten.

So we are moving slowly towards that direction.

So, when we are doing our programs, when you teach about sexual abuse and harassment, we also involve boys.

We want boys to know about sexual abuse and harassment so that they should be able to speak out if they see it happening and, again, them--themselves, they should be involved in a way that they should put a-- they should put a stop.

And, again, they should not be involved in harassing girls or abusing girls in one way or another.

So, in our program, my class, we are talking about girls, but we're also involving boys as change agents.

(Shadreck) Sometimes, we don't see the boy that's involved or the man that's involved.

If they had role models, they would also understand.

"I need to wait, I can wait.

Although the girl has said yes, I need to wait."

We need also to involve men 'cause these are the one who propose these small, small girls, right?

It's very important to marry someone, a lady, who is well-educated.

There are a lot of advantages.

One is like you do help each other in a the family in terms of budgeting purposes and how best you can raise your children.

And, also, you have issues for family planning.

We need first to empower these young girls and, also, we need to develop a curriculum so that they should be-- these girls should be inspired.

For people to get good education, it involves a lot of things.

It involves the teachers themselves.

As a teacher, I'm supposed to have maybe 65 students, but, then, at the end of the day, I'm having 115 or 150.

So, you see that it becomes hard for the teacher.

It also becomes hard for the students to concentrate.

The other thing could also be learning resources.

You want the students to follow, but then you only have four books with a hundred students.

So, sometimes, it could be the environment whereby maybe the students are learning off-site maybe under a tree.

You see, that cannot motivate a child.

So, the rainy season, which is three months, you're almost guaranteed an interrupted attendance to school for this age group.

They're under a tree.

So, some of them, they just opt to go home.

When they go home, and most of our parents are subsistence farmers-- and this is what I've noted-- you find that they found somebody who is handy to look after the younger one who is less than two.

So, you can see that this seven-, eight-year-old who has come back from school because it's raining, they were not in class and are told to go home earlier is looking after this.

For the parents, this is a spare hand.

To me, there's no one solution to the problem.

What the chief is doing is part of the solution to arresting the whole issue of early marriage, bringing back the children to school.

Having been a Member of Parliament in the area, and also looking at Malawi as a whole, I'm looking at also something beyond this to say, "Why do the kids get married?"

(McKnight) As a country, we are running what is called the HeforShe Campaign.

And through other partners, like Campaign for Female Education, which is ensuring that between now and the next six, seven years, that project sends at least 3,500 girls to university.

I founded a program which seeks to equip-- educate girls on personal development skills, communication skills, problem solving skills...

So, want girls to develop these personal skills so that they will be able to solve the challenges that they face each and every day.

I believe girls need role models.

For example, there's girls that are in boarding schools.

They do have role models that come to their school to be able to tell them, "Okay I am a nurse, and this is what I do."

"Okay, I am a soldier, a female soldier, and this is what I do."

"Okay, I am a doctor, and this is what I do."

But then there are also other areas, or other places where they can get education like vocation skills.

We have technical schools, where they can get these sewing skills, vocation skills.

In so doing, these girls are able to know that there are all these different types of jobs that are there, or different types of things that they can be able to do because they are able to see.

Like, they haven't known about, maybe, that girls can become engineers.

Or sometimes the education system has always been, "I want to get educated, so that I should be this, so that I should work as this."

But then, you don't only get educated to work for somebody, but they can acquire skills and employ other people.

Be entrepreneurs.

be businesspersons.

When I was 21, I met this gentleman who is my husband now, and it's not that my parents forced me into that marriage.

No, it was me who said, "I want this one, and this is the one I want to marry."

We started this business, we've started small, and this is how far we've gone.

You start your own business and then cover yourself empowered.

In that so doing, you can help the country and help yourself as well.

Yeah.

I was born in a family of eight.

But, in my family, I'm the only girl who has gone further with her education, because I was able to even go to the university and finish there, and I was able to make my own choices of the man I wanted to marry, and of the things that I wanted to do, the way that I feel like doing.

I had the power, because I got education.

As I've already said, I'm a manager at Kanyenyeva Ministries, this ministry that we do with orphans.

I am a translator, and I get paid highly.

I also bake.

It was just a hobby of mine, but then seeing how much people want my cakes and love my cakes and love my baking, they have been able to buy.

So, I've also used that skill as part of a means of me getting some income as well.

Well, I'm currently the Vice President of the Film Association of Malawi, and I am also a board member in three different organizations.

And one of the organizations is actually a youth organization, it's called Light of Youth Creative Organization.

I went to school, I finished, and I'm working, I'm doing my own business.

(narrator) Mentorship, role models, government programs, and grassroots efforts, a combination of ideas designed to keep girls in school and out of early marriages.

This cultural shift cannot happen if people refuse to see the cost of keeping the status quo.

That has been an issue, and most of the times it's changing in the urban area, but in the villages out there, it's still there.

It's still there, and it still needs to change.

And therefore, there is always a cost to what you do, there is always a price to pay.

She'll be forced to carry a child, to give birth to a child, while she herself is still a child.

The bride price, for me, really has two meanings.

The first meaning is an obvious meaning where the man is paying a price to have the girl as a wife.

But there's a price that the girl is paying, and she is paying this price with her freedom.

And the family is paying the price as well, because an educated girl is someone who's going to alleviate the poverty of the family, someone who is going to help her community.

They always lose their dignity, their sense of pride.

When you get this girl she'll be the one to take care of you.

The education of a woman is not just for her, you know, educating the children that she will raise.

If this education of a girl child is cut off, it costs so much.

It's costing herself, as an individual.

It's costing her family.

It's costing her village.

It's costing her community.

It's costing even the nation at large.

(narrator) A 2017 study determined that ending child marriage in Malawi alone, could generate 167 million US dollars in earnings and productivity.

A higher number of children in households where the mothers are less educated perpetuates the cycle of poverty and prevents a nation from achieving its full potential economically.

We have a saying in my country that I love so much, that when you educate a girl, you have educated a nation.

Basically, we know that there are some chiefs who don't... who are slow to change.

But, when we're meeting them, they wouldn't really show openly or right away, yeah, to say no this...

Most of them will tell you that indeed this is bad.

But then we see from how they react on the ground, or in terms of implementation, of what we have discussed.

So, we continue to make follow-ups, monitoring this, and keep encouraging them until they start changing.

Some chiefs came here to learn what I'm doing, they came here train.

They came here for a week to learn what I'm doing.

Chiefs, as I say, the custodians of culture.

If a chief, for example Chief Kachindamoto, she has been able to rescue 800 plus girls from early marriages.

She's managing to do that because she's a chief.

She's in the position, she's in a big position up there.

And, all these chiefs that are below her are able to follow what she is doing.

And if all chiefs in Malawi followed suit, if all chiefs in Malawi were saying okay, let's concentrate on the education of our children.

Let's try to make sure to send our girls to schools.

Let's try to make sure to send our children to school.

If we are able to talk to people and make them realize that this is the only thing that can help change things, that's when we can be able to see a change.

That's when we can say, "Halleluiah, things are okay."

(narrator) The fight to elevate the status of girls around the world continues, and Malawi can serve as a positive example of how tradition can be challenged.

Senior Chief Kachindamoto continues to cancel marriages, rescuing the girls, even paying for their school fees from her own pockets, and raising awareness to the real worth of these girls beyond their bride price.