Report says more girls than boys early marriages
While the country continues to intensify its efforts in ending child marriages, the vice continues to be rampant among girls as compared to boys.
This is contained in the fourth Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (Mics) which shows 38 percent of girls between the ages of 20 and 24 are t married before the age of 18 while only seven percent of boys in the same age range get married before the age of 18.
The results of the survey also show that almost 46 percent of girls between the ages of 20 and 24 get married before the age of 18 in rural areas as compared to 32 percent of girls in urban areas.
According to the survey, conducted between December 2019 and August 2020, education and socio-economic status remain the key determinants of child marriage.
Reads the survey results in part: “Women aged 20 to 49 years with pre-primary or no education were 10 times more likely to get married by age 18 compared to those with higher education.”
According to the survey, 48 percent of women in poor households get married by the age of 18 compared to those from rich households at 30 percent.
On the other hand, four percent of girls get married in childhood in all regions, with the survey further stating that the percentage of girls aged between 20 and 49 who were first married before the age of 15 and before the age of 18 has remained constant across all age cohorts over time.
In a telephone interview on Saturday, Youth Net and Counselling (Yoneco) executive director MacBain Mkandawire said the main challenge in ending child marriage is a piecemeal approach to programmes to ending the vice.
He said the country also lacks specific tailored designs that can be implemented in ending child marriages.
Mkandawire said: “There are no locally designed solutions to ending child marriages as we mostly implement programmes that are put forward by donors. So, we need to go back to the drawing board as a country and see how best we can deal with this.”
In a separate interview, child rights and gender advocate Bridget Shumba said while the rate of early marriage is higher among girls, boys need not to be neglected in programmes to address the challenges.
She said most programmes have tended to focus on girls in addressing the ills of society which is only good on the short term but cause challenges in the medium to long term.
“It is clear from the Mics that more girls and women are married off at an early age in the rural areas than in urban areas,” Shumba said.
The right to free and full consent to marriage is recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the recognition that consent cannot be free and full when one of the parties involved is not sufficiently mature to make an informed decision about a life partner.
