A few of the King’s older wives

At dawn…thousands of Swazi girls removed tasselled scarves symbolising their chastity, abandoning an ancient rite revived to combat the modern scourge of Aids.

In 2001, King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch, reinstated for five years the umchwasho rite, banning sex for girls under 18. The move was ridiculed as old-fashioned and unfairly focused on girls, and the king himself was accused of ignoring it.

Will our King do the same?

During the five-year ban, Swazi girls were instructed to wear a tasselled scarf as a symbolic badge of virginity. If an umchwasho girl was approached for sex by a man, she was expected to throw her tassels at his homestead, obliging his family to hand over a cow.

When King Mswati chose a 17-year-old as his ninth wife in 2001, about 300 young women marched to a royal residence, laying down their tassels in protest.

His aides said the ban was designed to discourage casual relationships, not marriage. But King Mswati surrendered the cow, which was roasted and eaten by the young women.