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Giving Compass' Take:
• Nita Bhalla shares how polygamy can push women and children into poverty as men take on new wives and families, neglecting . their existing wives and children.
• What changes are necessary to end polygamy? How can funders identify opportunities to fund local efforts to end polygamy?
• Read a gender equality guide for donors.
It was after 21 years of marriage and six children together that Joyce's husband brought home his second wife, without any discussion or warning.
The 38-year-old Kenyan housewife, who married at 17 with no education or skills, had to share her home and husband with a woman almost half her age.
"I was completely dependent on him. There was no choice but to put up and shut up," said Joyce, now 58, sitting in the office of a women's rights charity on Nairobi's outskirts.
"Things changed after she moved in. He stopped caring. The school fees, clothes and toys stopped. His new family was well taken care of, but my kids didn't even finish high school."
Unable to make ends meet, Joyce married off her daughters before they turned 18. Her sons dropped out of school to work as child farm labourers and provide for the family.
Having multiple wives is common in about one-quarter of the world's nations — predominantly conservative, male-dominated communities in Africa and Muslim-majority countries where it is part of traditional or religious customs.
But campaigners say most polygamous marriages in Kenya, and other African nations, are fuelling poverty — with husbands neglecting one family over another — leaving thousands of women and children impoverished and easy prey for exploitation.
Read the full article about polygamy by Nita Bhalla at Global Citizen