So the official data are of limited value in understanding the prevalence of early marriage for women in Zimbabwe. It is equally clear that there are no good data on the consequences of early marriage, even though there are a reasonable number of organisations with expressed public concern about the phenomenon. The UNICEF report (mentioned above) does report on a number of factors that are importantly related to early marriage – polygyny, education, and understanding about contraception and HIV – but there is little information about its cultural acceptability, role of religion in promoting or dissuading it, the psycho-social effects, and, in general, any understanding about the effects of early marriage from the perspective of those that have experienced this. The State of the World’s Children Report (2014)3 ignores the issue of child marriage despite its ramifications for the children’s health. This lack of information in Zimbabwe is not surprising, for this is a deficit internationally. A literature search on the question “How are local constructions of child marriage researched?” revealed a paucity of reliable studies. The full details of this literature review are given in Appendix 3, but, in summary, this revealed very few studies that were methodologically sound. 1437 articles, of which 775 were left over after removing the duplicates, were found with the search terms. When more selective criteria were applied, the 775 articles reduced to 23, and only 11 were found that met the screening criteria of explicit methodology. The present study attempts to provide more detailed information about early marriage from the perspective of those that have experienced this. It does so through an investigation of women’s view on marriage generally, but includes some women that were married early in order to provide a contrast in experiences. The study follows on an earlier (preliminary) study carried out in Goromonzi District by RAU (RAU.2014). 1.1 Afrobarometer Data on Goromonzi According to the 2012 Census, Goromonzi District has a total population of 224,987 persons, of whom 113,661 (50.5%) are female. This was derived from 58,013 households, with an average household size of 3.9 persons, which is also the average household size for Mashonaland East Province as a whole. The Census is somewhat misleading in one respect: it suggests that poverty is considerably less than the reality, classifying 72% of Mashonaland East Province as “economically active”. When compared with the Afrobarometer data on Goromonzi (see Table 3 below), it is clear that those surveyed in Goromonzi for the Afrobarometer place economic issues very high in their priorities of what needs attention by the government. Data available from the Afrobarometer 5th Round (2012) for Goromonzi was examined in order to see whether this data might assist in building a better picture of Goromonzi than could be provided by 2012 Census. The Afrobarometer Goromonzi sample was only 32 respondents, but this does allow a flavour of the District through the eyes of residents of the District. The State of the World’s Children 2014 in Numbers: Every child counts www.unicef.org/publications/files/SOWC_2015_Summary_and_Tables.pdf) 3 6