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| A young mother in rural Zambia |
By Paul Shalala
Stakeholders in Zambia’s
Copperbelt Province have called for the criminalization of child marriages to
protect school-going children from early marriages.
According to World Vision International, Zambia has one of the highest child marriage rates in the world with 42% of women aged 20-24 years married by the age of 18.
During a
provincial experts meeting in Kitwe on Monday,
Kitwe District Commissioner Chanda Kabwe
called for the country to come up with stringent laws
which would punish parents who marry off their
school-going children.
Mr Chanda said
it was sad that children were being married off at an early age and most of
them were dropping out of school and becoming parents.
“Some parents,
when they see their girl children, they see wealth. We need to start arresting
and jailing such irresponsible people so that the girl child can finish school
and seize all the opportunities the world has in store for them,” said Mr Kabwe
who heads local government departments in the mining town of Kitwe.
He regretted
that Zambia has few women in positions of decision making and child marriages
were making the situation even worse as girls who were intelligent in school
are having their education cut short by early marriages.
And Chileshe Soteli, the
Chiefs Affairs Officer in Lufwanyama District called for the punishment of
under age children who abandon school and insist on marrying.
Ms Soteli, who narrated how
she has over the years dealt with numerous cases of juveniles who opt for early
marriage, said there was need for the minors to be punished as a deterrent to
would be child brides and child grooms.
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| Chanda Kabwe |
“I come from a rural district
where child marriages are common. We plead with these children to stick to
school but they insist on marrying. I think we need a law which will prescribe
a form of punishment for such children because the situation is getting out of
hand,” said Ms Soteli.
And gender activist Sharon
Chisanga says most school going children are forced into early
marriage because of their parents’ failure to raise money to sustain their
lives.
Ms
Chisanga, who is also Provincial Coordinator for the Young Women Christian
Association, told the meeting that there was need for society to curb this vice
because it is depriving the nation of
potential female leaders.
“Parents
are also to blame for this problem. When young girls sleep in cabins, they feel
uncomfortable and they hope to get married and sleep in better homes,” she
said.
Cabins
are small houses which were built as temporal houses for single miners on the
Copperbelt but over the decades, they have been transformed into family houses
despite their small size.
The
provincial stakeholders meeting on early marriages was organised by the Law
Development Commission to find suggestions from stakeholders on whether to
criminalise early marriages due to the escalating cases across the country.
The
commission decided to start its countrywide tour and collection of views in the
Copperbelt Province because according to the Central Statistical Office, the
copper-rich region has the second highest cases of child marriages among the 10
provinces of Zambia.
“Zambia
has two sources of law for marriage. Under statutory law, a person can marry at
21 years and we have no problem with that. But under customary law, a person
can be married at any age as long as they reach puberty. This is where we have
a problem and early marriages are increasing under customary law,” said Gilbert
Mwanza, a lawyer and research officer at the Law Development Commission.
Mr
Mwanza, who is leading the countrywide collection of the views, is among
officer who are expected to draft a bill to criminalise child marriages and harmonise
the marriage age.
The
Law Development Commission is a statutory body under Zambia’s Ministry of
Justice.
The
commission is mandate is to continuously research on laws and propose bills to
parliament.
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