Child marriage cases rising despite NGO, govt efforts

The Tanzania Ending Child Marriage Network (TECMN) is to take the lead in tackling the rising number of girls below the age of 15 forced into early marriage by destitute parents most of whom targeting to generate wealth through dowry.

Kokuteta Baregu, the network chairperson told reporters in Dar es Salaam that early and forced marriage is disturbing and a collaborative approach between the government, CSOs, NGOs and other players was required to end such unacceptable gender violence.

 TECMN, a network with 35 members expressed optimism that multisectoral approaches like expanding the network in rural communities can yield positive results.

 “Early and forced marriage is a serious problem. We have to jointly work together to end it,” the NGO activist said at a workshop organized by the Tanzania Media Women Association (Tamwa), bringing together representatives of NGOs working to end child marriage.

The meeting was also attended by representatives from the Canadian Embassy in Tanzania.

Ending Child Marriage ambassador and former Tamwa executive director Valerie Msoka said research shows child brides in Africa reached 125million in 2015 and it is projected there would be 310million such brides by end of 2015.

According to the goodwill ambassador, early and forced marriage is a result of education challenges. Most schools for instance are far away from homes of the pupils.

Fragmentation of laws especially the Marriage Act, 1971 coupled with little political will by leaders to end outdated traditional practices was pushing up the scourge.

Tanzania launched an early and forced marriage free zone campaign in 2014, spotting Tarime district in Mara region as the first zone.

The campaign helped to raise awareness among women and girl children  who had heavily been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) also another form of GBV as a step ahead of their maturity.

Yet, the government through former minister for Community Development Gender and Children, Sophia Simba signed an International Charter on the Girl Child in 2014 as it intensified efforts to tackle the problem.

John Josephat Myola, the program director for the Agape Aids Control Programme in Shinyanga made it clear that efforts have not been borne fruit in the region as cases of early and forced marriages kept soaring.

He said it’s unfortunate that most parents have been colluding with dishonest police officers to keep their bad plans upbeat and undisturbed.

The age group of girls most affected are those aged 15 and slightly below, and sometimes marriage is forced on a pre-teen child, he said, pointing out that parents even look for charms from herbalists to attract suitors to their girl children.

“Such acts have brought hundreds of girls to be victims of gender based violence.

Some parents even push their daughters not to mark correct answers in their final standard seven exams so that they aren’t selected for secondary education, and instead they can be married,” he pointed out.