Plan warns on girls’early, forced marriages
Plan International has challenged Commonwealth governments to display more political will in advancing pledges to share best practices and promote measures to end child marriage.
The sentiments were made on Wednesday in London during a High Level Commonwealth meeting jointly held by Plan UK and the Royal Commonwealth Society, and was hosted by the Canadian High Commission.
Plan UK director of programmes Nazma Kabir, who addressed the meeting, told Nation on Sunday in an e-mailed response that according to research, one in every three girls in the developing world will be married by the age of 18 in 2020.
According to Kabir, it means that more than 140 million girls will be married by 2020 globally, translating into 14 million every year.
Seven million of these have been tipped to come from Commonwealth countries such as Malawi should no deliberate action be taken to help arrest the malpractice by the member countries.
Kabir called the situation as outrageous and has demanded immediate action.
“Now is the time to work together to change this situation. Young people are working together to end the practice by negotiating with their local leaders, discussing with government and standing up for each other against early and forced marriage [EFM], what are you and I doing about it?”
Addressing the same meeting, deputy secretary general of the Commonwealth Secretariat Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba, stated that EFM is a big challenge that governments need to take seriously; particularly, in human rights, economic empowerment, social protection and gender-based violence.
In Malawi, just as is the case in many African countries, child marriage is rampant and is said to pose a serious challenge to development and child rights.
Plan—through its ‘Because I am a Girl Campaign’—wants to change people’s attitude on the issue by creating an environment that recognises and protects girls’ rights, and build girls’ resilience and urgency to help them challenge and resist such harmful practices.
The London meeting followed resolutions made at the 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Governments Summit, which had called for collective action in addressing the challenge of EFM.
The Commonwealth comprises countries that were once British colonies.
