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Matsiwo communal lands in Dande, Mbire, near Zimbabwe’s border with Mozambique.
The girls are being married off from as early as 13 years of age in exchange for cash, goats or a few bags of maize after erratic rains derailed harvesting prospects.
In an interview recently, chief Christopher Chirume Matsiwo, said out of every five families with girls aged between 13 and 15, three of them if not all, were married off.
Chief Matsiwo said he had since ordered village heads in his chiefdom to report to him and police any such cases.
“Severe hunger and low literacy levels have caused an upsurge of child marriages in my chiefdom. I have personally reported several such cases to police. This is a serious issue because you see someone marrying off a 13-year-old girl for a few bags of maize or a few goats or small amount of cash.
“I have since ordered all my village heads, headmen and kraal heads to report to me all such cases or to the police or both. This cannot be allowed to continue,” said chief Matsiwo.
The Matsiwo communal lands are a vast track of barren land in the Zambezi Valley.
In the past decade, the area was known for its cotton growing strength but with cotton prices plummeting on the international market and erratic rains season after season, the villagers seem to have given up on serious farming.
Chief Matsivo said he had requested Government to intervene through food aid and massive education campaigns as the situation was getting out of hand.
“I know that such cases exist in neighbouring chieftainships of the Zambezi Valley but they have reached alarming proportions in my own chiefdom.
“I have made an official appeal to Government to immediately intervene and solve the girl child’s problem.
“Imagine a girl being married off for as little as three bags of maize. How then do you save the girl child? These old men are now having as much as four or seven wives because they can afford.
“This is how bad the situation is,” said the chief.
A bag of maize costs about US$12, which is almost equivalent to the price of a goat.