We've said it before, and will say it again: black women are undefeated. Often the driving force behind significant movements, when a black woman wants something done … she gets it done.

Case in point: Theresa Kachindamoto, a woman who became senior chief of the Dezda District in Malawi.

According to Al Jazeera, Kachindamoto never expected that she'd return to Dezda, the place she grew up, after she'd found a job in the city.

However, one day Kachindamoto, who is the youngest daughter of a former chief, got a call telling her that Dezda District's chiefs had spoken: she had been named senior chief. Suddenly, her life and mission changed.

As senior chief, Kachindamoto leads over 900,000 people, and has made it her mission to crack down on righting significant wrongs, including putting an end to child marriages and sexual initiations.

Appalled by seeing girls as young as 12-years-old with babies and husbands almost as young as they were, Kachindamoto said enough was enough. "I told them: 'Whether you like it or not, I want these marriages to be terminated,'" she said.

Initially, Kachindamoto faced some resistance. Many parents of daughters argued that they had to marry off their girls early, because they wouldn't afford to feed them. Others argued that marrying girls off young was a tradition, and that traditions shouldn't be broken.

Kachindamoto decided to change the law. She brought all 50 of her sub chiefs together, and made all of them sign a document that abolished early marriage and annulled all current child marriages. She then ensured all of the young girls freed from marriage by her new law were put back in school.

And she fired any chief that refused to execute the law.

"First of all it was difficult, but now people are understanding," Kachindamoto said.

All in all, Kachindamoto has ended over 850 child marriages in her three years as senior chief.

According to a 2012 United Nations survey, more than half of Malawi's girls get married before turning 18 years old; the country ranked eight out of the 20 countries with the highest child marriage rates.

Child marriage doesn't just deprive young girls of an education and socioeconomic opportunities, but puts their very lives in danger, according to activists.

"We see a lot of complications, like cesarean births and girls cut as their bodies are too small to give birth," said Emilida Misomali, a member of a village mothers group.

Malawi's parliament recently passed a law that prohibited marriage under the age of 18, but minors are still able get married with parental consent under customary and traditional law, although not in Kachindamoto's Dezda District.

Kachindamoto has also banned sexual initiations.

In this traditional initiation, girls as young as 7-years-old are sent to special camps for "kusasa fumbi," which means "cleansing."

At these camps, girls are reportedly taught "how to please men" by performing salacious dances and various sex acts. At certain camps, girls can only "graduate" by having sex with a teacher. Some of the girls who manage to leave the camps with their virginity become the victims of "hyenas," a term for the men hired by their parents to take their virginity.

The risk of contracting HIV/AIDS is high; according to the U.N., one in 10 people in Malawi has HIV, and condoms are rarely, if ever used at the camps or by the hyenas. Adding to the problem is the widespread belief that infected men can cure themselves by having sex with a virgin, Al Jazeera found.

"I said to the chiefs that this must stop, or I will dismiss them," Kachindamoto said.

She has even recently taken her fight to the national stage, asking Parliament to raise the minimum marriage age from 18 to 21.

She believes that this change, and the changes she had implemented will not only help Malawi's girls to stay alive and healthy, but to prosper. By marrying later, girls are able to stay in school longer; Kachindamoto is so committed to girls' education that she pays the tuition of many girls in her district personally, and raises money to cover the fees of others.

Of course, Kachindamoto's changes have come with challenges and dissent, including death threats.

These she ignores, pressing on. And although some don't like her or her new policies, Kachindamoto said, laughing at their threats, "I'm chief until I die."

A QUEEN!

Theresa Kachindamoto

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