I often get woken up in the middle of the night by mothers who need to rush their daughters, as young as 10 years old, to the hospital because they are in labour or are having some sort of complications with their pregnancies. The nearest hospital is 60km away from our village and ambulances never come here. 

I could not help but notice how young these girls are. And, I was horrified to discover that in my community men in their late 30’s and 40’s are cohabitating with these children, impregnating them and then leaving them to suffer through difficult pregnancies alone. Even worse is that this outright sexual exploitation, statutory rape and abuse of girls is normalised by parents and our tribal authorities under the tradition of “funelani nganeno”.

I am Innocent, A Nguvu Collective Change leader and one of the few people in my village who is willing to use their car as a village ambulance in these life and death situations. I urge you to sign this petition and ask the Human Rights Commission to intervene and protect young girls and stop the practice of “funelani nganeno”.

Tradition has accepted and formalised this practice and given it the name “funelani nganeno”. The streets say “after 12 is lunch”. Under this tradition, a man can take any disadvantaged girl from the street as they desire, spend the night with her, take her back to her parents in the morning, and report their actions towards the girl child. A paltry sum as low as 100 ZAR is offered to the parents to make things right. There is no formality in this agreement, therefore it is not legally documented. And just like that without the 10 year old child’s knowledge she has become a wife to someone who is in his 30s or 40s.

This tradition is not only happening in my village, recently there have been reports that children as young as 10 have fallen pregnant in the last year with KwaZulu-Natal recording 26 515 pregnancies of young girls aged 10 and 19 in eight months. 

This practice needs to be stopped! Sign and share this petition asking Human Rights Commission to launch an investigation into this practice to ensure that we safeguard the lives of young girls in Nkomazi. 

Let us unite to protect young girls from sexual exploitation, statutory rape and abuse. 

Photos by Jodi Bieber for Al Jazeera America