31-07-2025
Final step of Warrap community discussions paves way for outlawing early marriages
It was 1975 when traditional chiefs from across what has since 2011 been South Sudan came together in Western Bahr El Ghazal to realize their vision of a uniform customary law – the Quanun Wanh-alel.
Half a century later, this law still serves as the basis for judging at least 90% of cases that fall under traditional law, legislation that reflects the customs of the people.
Some of these rules, it seems, are no longer passing the tests of time and changing views.
'Our younger generations deserve a new legal system that reflects the modern world,' asserts Adut Akoc, a women's representative in Kuajok.
She is referring to people like S., who belongs to the more than 70% of the South Sudanese population aged below 30. For fear of angry reactions, not least from her own family, she prefers to be anonymous.
Last year, when S. was only 16, an influential business owner wanted her as his fourth wife. Paying a dowry of 180 cows to S.'s family, the deal was sealed.
'My father and brother love me, but it is our custom for girls to be married off early, because that is what our community has always thought is best, both for the girl and the families involved,' she explains.
But S. refused to play along with the age-old script. She refused, and she was made to pay a high price. The rejected would-be husband complained to the police, who in turn put her in prison.
After several months and following a visit by a formal justice court, S. was released, with her father instead being ordered to return the cattle that had been paid. While not currently being detained, the court's instruction to hand over the animals, which he no longer possesses, remains.
It poses a continued threat to S. and her entire family, at least as long as customary law allows early and forced marriages to be completed. Unless the livestock is returned, the local customs may once again stipulate that any member of the offending family may be imprisoned.
S., however, remains defiant.
'My dream is to finish my education and become a teacher. I don't want to be chained to the house.'
The domestic nightmare scenario she paints is as real as it is common.
Roda Sube, a Gender Affairs Officer serving with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), has come across numerous similar incidents, including a widowed woman being forced to marry a male relative of her deceased husband, another oft-practiced custom.
'These traditional laws are often a result of social cohesion being valued higher than respecting the relatively modern concept of human rights,' says Pyry Salomo Paulasaari, a Programme Administrator for the International Organization of Migration (IOM), a UN entity that for years has been facilitating discussions with local communities on how to modernize customary rules without threatening the all-important sense of communal togetherness.
'Nobody is better placed to review the laws they must abide by than the people themselves, and they (community members) have been pushing for change,' he adds.
Last month, and as fate would have it, Western Bahr El Ghazal, the very place where the archaic traditional laws were first established five decades ago, and in consultation with its former woman governor, became the first state in the country to formally adopt a modernized set of rules, one of which prohibits early and forced marriages.
As for S., she has reason to be cautiously optimistic. A recent gathering of chiefs and community leaders from across her state, organized with the support of the UN peacekeeping mission and partners, paved the way for Warrap to follow the example of neighboring Western Bahr El Ghazal.
Yes, as things stand, the final approval of Warrap's Ministry of Justice and its Government is the only remaining hurdle to making early and forced marriages a memory of the past.
'It is long overdue. We all need this milestone reform,' says Madhel Lang Juk, Paramount Chief and Chairperson of the state's chapter of the Council of Traditional Authority Leaders. 'Hopefully, others will soon reach the same consensus.'
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
