Canceling more than 800 child marriages and sending girls back to school, this female chief is becoming a hero.

In third world countries, especially in Africa, you have weird traditions born out of poverty, where girls are forced to get married very young in order for the parents to not have to feed them anymore. I come from a second world country and in some villages, you find these practices in the people’s mentality and manifesting in their homes. My second cousin was nearly forced to get married when she was only 15, but there are some extreme cases when girls have a husband as young as 12.

Theresa Kachindamotoen is a revolutionary who is not afraid of doing the right thing even with the price of death sometimes. She comes from Malawi, but she had spent most of her youth in another place, where she would work as a school secretary. Until one time that she was nominated as chief at the village Monkey Bay. Since she comes from a heritage of chiefs in the area she agreed to the position even though at first she did not know what to do or how to react to such a proposal. Then once she saw the kind of problems that place had, she decided to stay for good.

Most of the girls in Malawi would marry at 12 and have a baby by 14, which is not normal at all. The poverty of the place makes it impossible for the parents to be able to raise these girls so they are left with the option of marrying them away. Of course, ever since 2015, child marriage has been illegal in Malawi, but this would not prevent the parents from doing so. Until Theresa came to power and decided to cancel more than 800 child marriages and send those girls back to school. She believes that they deserve to have a good childhood and no one has the right to decide differently. Of course, a lot of parents disagreed but Theresa is not planning to stop at all.