Copperbelt Activists Call For Criminalisation Of Child Marriages

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.

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.

Zambia’s Referendum Fails As Less Than 50% Of Voters Show Up

By Paul Shalala

A voter

Zambia has failed to pass several progressive human rights amendments to its constitution following the failure by voters to reach the 50% threshold needed to approve the amendments in a referendum.

On Thursday last week, Zambia went to the polls in a general election which was also tied to a referendum on the bill of rights which had progressive laws.

Due to the attention given to the presidential election, the counting and announcing of referendum votes was halted and postponed to today to allow for the presidential results to be announced first.

According to Zambia’s Referendum Act, the country needs at least 50% of its citizens above 18 years to vote in a referendum.

Further, half of those who show up at the polling stations must vote YES for the referendum to succeed.

However, today, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) announced that last week’s referendum failed to reach the threshold.

ECZ Chairperson Esau Chulu disclosed that only 44.4% of the eligible voters turn out and the referendum failed by 5.6%.

According to the Central Statistical Office, Zambia has an estimated total of 7,528,091 people above the age of 18 and this means that for the referendum to go through, 3,764,046 should have voted.

However, according to Justice Chulu, only 3,345,047 showed up and of those, only 1,852,549 voted YES for the referendum.

The ECZ and some civil society organisations ran sensitisation campaigns urging people to come out and vote in the referendum.

The ruling Patriotic Front campaigned for a YES vote while the opposition UPND and other parties campaigned for a NO vote.

Despite the general election recording a 56.4% turn out, the referendum recorded a 44.4%.

After voting for President, Member of Parliament, Mayor and Councillor, some voters did not proceed to the referendum booth to also vote in the referendum despite both processes being held in the same polling stations.

The Referendum Question On the ballot Paper

Some of the progressive laws which were provided for in the bill of rights were a provision of 19 years as the marriage age, banning of abortion, providing access to information, freedom of the media, social, economic, cultural and political rights and fair trial.

Since the announcement of the referendum results, some Copperbelt-based civil society organisations have told this blogger of their disappointment.

“We are disappointed that the referendum has failed. We had hope that if the bill of rights was passed, we were going to be granted access to information which we have been championing for years. We also hoped that the public media would be given freedom. But this now means we get back to our drawing boards and start pushing parliament to enact the access to information bill,” said Andrew Sakala, President of the Press Association of Zambia.

Since 2002, the Zambian media has been involved ina back and forth game with governments for the access to information law to be taken back to parliament for enactment.

Not much progress has been made in realising this dream as successful governments have been failing to take back the bill to the floor of the house since its withdrawal from the standing orders 14 years ago.

For those involved in governance issues, the failure of the referendum means a major setback to their countrywide advocacy activities in the past three months.

“We are very disappointed by this development. We blame opposition parties who politicised this process. They campaigned against the referendum and now the people of Zambia have been denied their social, economic and cultural rights. This should be a lesson to Zambians and they should know that some parties don’t mean well,” said Gerard Mutelo, President of the Kitwe-based Democratic Governance and Human Rights Advocates.  

For some governance activists, the failure by Zambian voters to pass the bill of rights has hurt them hard.

“We are disappointed and annoyed. We spent a lot of money in sensitising the masses. What have the opposition parties gained in this…… People are not celebrating this development…. What have they achieved?” said an angry looking Poster Jumbe, the Copperbelt Province Coordinator of the Anti-Voter Apathy Project, a youth-led organisation which champions the involvement of young people in public affairs.

Some of the advocacy material for referendum

Among other provisions, the bill of rights called suggested 19 years to be made the marriage age in light of the conflict between customary and statutory laws which recognise marriage at different ages.

“It is very disappointing that the bill of rights has not been passed. We hoped that if it passed, it would have raised the marriage age to 19 and helped stop early marriages which are rampant in Zambia,” said Sharon Chisanga, the Copperbelt Province Coordinator for the Young Women Christian Association.

Ms Chisanga coordinates several programs aimed at discouraging early marriages which are common on the Copperbelt Province which has the second highest rate among Zambia’s 10 provinces.

If passed, the bill of rights would have also outlawed the detention of pregnant women.

Currently, pregnant women can be jailed and several women are incarcerated and raise their children in prison.

The bill had also provided for quick trials to avoid the common practice of suspects spending months and possibly years before their cases are disposed off by the courts of law.

With Zambia's conservative society, the country added a clause which defined marriage as union between two people of opposite sex.

This clause was clearly stated to avoid any chances of same sex marriages in a country which is constitutionally recognised as a christian nation even though it also respects other faiths.

Before Thursday’s referendum, the last time Zambia had such a vote was in 1969.