MAGRETH’S STORY

Magreth is a 27-year-old widow and a mother of two children from Mang’ati tribe, in Manyara region at least 8 hours away from Arusha. Married twice, she got married first time when she was 15 years old. Her husband was mistreating her, he was beating her and made her take the goats to find pasture with a baby on her back, and when she comes back home, she will find her husband home with other women in their matrimonial home. If Magreth tries to ask and complain about her husband cheating on her, he will beat her.

It came to a point that Magreth decided to leave and return back to her parent’s house, but the husband will come to her parents and shed tears and beg for forgiveness that he has changed, then the elders and her parents will tell her to go back with her husband and say that he has changed even when Magreth refuse to go back they end up forcing her to go back. So, she definitely did not have a say.

When Magreth went back with her husband, he did not change but rather he became even worse, he was mad that she went and complained about him to her parents and other elders that was disrespect to him, he was beating her even more saying it was punishment to her.

Not long after, she became pregnant again, and this time it became even harder for her to leave. Her husband was not supporting her during her pregnancy until she delivered her baby, during the recovering period after childbirth she could not go out and work, so she had to sell her chicken that she was raising for eggs, then she left and went back to her parents. She stayed there for six months without any support from her husband.

Her parents could not support her and her kids, so she decided to go to another village to work in other people’s farms, so she can earn money and be able to provide for her children and reduce the burned from her parents. She was going to the other village and stay there during weekdays and come back on the weekends because it was a long work for her to go everyday and come back. But her husband heard that she was in another village, he went and demanded his kids from her parents, he forced to take them and the parents had to let him take the kids. Magreth tried to fight for her Kids but could not keep fighting for a long time because it was very costly for her and did not have money.

Her father died in 2022, and brothers took all the farms that their father left and she did not have anything to do to make money, that’s when she decided to remarry again to get out of that difficulty situation.

But it was unfortunate for her because her new husband died in August 2025, and her in-laws came and took what was in the house and was left with nothing. That’s when she had to seek help from her sister who was in Arusha, but her sister was also struggling. Her sister asked Neema to help Magreth, that’s when she came to Neema

She is currently staying at the MAP apartments on Neema Village campus, attending literacy classes because she does not know how to read and write. She wants to engage in farming because in her village to rent a farm and grow crops is not expensive and that’s what she has being doing since childhood and she likes farming.

Neema Village has been sponsoring Women’s Rights every month for over seven years.  Magreth will get to attend tomorrow!

(I usually edit these stories written by our Tanzania staff quite a bit but this one had so much about African culture I decided to leave it as written.)