wife to live with him. They boy acted as if he was in agreement with his newly found status of being a husband and waited for the girl’s aunts to leave. After they had gone back the boy told his new “wife” that his employers did not allow him to live with a woman at the staff quarters where he lived at work and he also chased her away. The girl asked was clearly disempowered by this process which deprived her off the chance to express herself and to actively decide her fate after being caught having sex. The whole idea of chasing the child away and forcing her to live with an older man, irrespective of whether he was the one who had raped her or she had consensual sex with him was the main constraint on the young girls’ self-efficacy. The police were accused of preferring that families informally resolve such conflicts. As several child brides reported “…there is an agreement (not to take each other to court.)…that is when I realised that it is such a waste of time going to report the matter to the police” and “The policeman said to them you need to talk to each other and sort this matter out of court.” Parents/guardians also tended to agree with the police in preferring cultural means of conflict resolution over the legal route. That was another factor which disenabled young girls’ ability to determine the direction of the lives once they were raped or were suspected of having premarital sex with boys and older men. Culture was thus, a critical component of machinery that foiled child brides’ self-efficacy. Another factor shaping the child brides self-efficacy was the fact that the older and richer old men took advantage of poor families’ financial problems to coerce the parents into marrying off their child. Because of the poverty, the possibility of having their teenage daughter marrying a rich businessman or a church elder was too tempting for poverty stricken families. As one older respondent put it, “The challenge is that because the old man has money he can do anything. There is nothing you can do as the mother of that child”. Once the parents showed preference for the informal conflict resolution strategies it became difficult for the young girls’ voices to be heard. Inevitably, they would be sent away to live with men even if they had no feelings and affection for each other leading to the abuse of the child brides. 6.1 Psychological well being One key measure for self-efficacy was the use of the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-8) to assess whether of the respondents were suffering from significant psychological disorder10. Interestingly, seven (29%) of the whole sample scored in the clinical range – scores of four or more – but there was no difference between those married under 18 years and those married later than 18 years. Of further interest was the finding that none of those married under 18 years reported suicidal ideation, whilst three of the over 18 group did. The percentage of those reporting significant psychological disorder is very much in line with previous general epidemiological studies in Zimbabwe (Reeler et al.1989), but is lower than recent estimates: previous estimates put significant psychological disorder, usually termed Common Mental Disorders, at between 20-30% of persons attending a health facility, whereas one recent study put the figure much higher, at between 30-40%. 10 The Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-8) is a psychiatric screening instrument, developed from the SRQ-20, which was originally developed by the World Health Organisation in the 1980s. Widely used through Africa and other developing countries, the SRQ-20 was also used widely in Zimbabwe. The SRQ-8 is a short version of the SRQ-20, developed specifically for Zimbabwe and validated for local use (Patel & Todd. 1994). 24