IN a bid to end the growing burden of Early Child Marriages that have seen girls dropping out of school and widening the opportunities gap between boys and girls, the Population Solutions for Health (PSH) through funding from the Embassy of Sweden, has launched the “Give Me A Chance,” an Anti-Child Marriages campaign in Zimbabwe.
By Michael Gwarisa in Zvimba
Besides being a national media campaign, the “Give Me A Chance” campaign is being implemented in three districts namely Uzumba, Maramba Pfungwe (UMP), Zvimba and Rushinga in partnership with the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development.
Speaking at the official launch of the campaign in Zvimba, Berthollet Kaboru, the Deputy Head of Mission Embassy of Sweden said ending child marriages was a combined effort and not a one man affair.
This event is timely given the fact that we concluded a series of activities recently which is known as the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence (GBV) and during that same period we launched this campaign to end child marriages. What we are doing here is to join our efforts and say child marriages is unacceptable and we have to put our brains together, positions and influence and say no more of these kind of things,” said Kaboru.
He added that child marriages shutters dreams of girls of becoming better contributors to economic and social development in the future and the practice should end now.
“I am always overjoyed when I meet brilliant girls and boys in Zimbabwe. I don’t understand how one day one can decide just to say all your dreams, I put an end to them today because you are the father or someone with influence. That’s not acceptable. That is why we came and joined hands with PSH and say let’s put our work together and work with the community, work with government to address this social scourge.
“Child marriage is harmful and is hampering community development and it is killing our daughters and sisters’ dreams and it’s pushing our community behind so that’s why we are saying no to it. I just want to say we are together in this, Sweden will continue supporting Zimbabwe and will make sure that all these girls really enjoy their lives and that they reach their full potential.”
The campaign seeks to address structural, cultural and religious practices that perpetuate child marriages in Zimbabwe in the process creating a national movement and dialogue that will contribute to the elimination of child marriages and achievement of gender equality between boys and girls in Zimbabwe.
Dr Noah Taruberekera, the PSH Executive Director & Managing Trustee said society should stop normalising early child marriages.
“We need to address this problem that we are witnessing in our communities of early child marriages. This campaign that we are gathered here for seeks to raise awareness and educate communities on the dangers of normalizing early child marriages. We all know what is causing these early child marriages, we all know what needs to be done to end this scourge but nothing or little is being done. Communities are now normalizing early child marriages,” said Dr Taruberekera.
From the community dialogues the PSH has conducted, Dr Taruberekera said they have gathered that girls were being driven into early child marriages by poverty as their parents marry them off in exchange for food and other commodities. He added that girls were also not being given equal opportunities to learn as their male counterparts.
Meanwhile, Mr Desmond Gumbochuma, the Zvimba District Development Coordinator (DDC) who was standing in for Justice Minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi said child marriages were rampant in the district, especially in the farming communities.
“Here in Zvimba, we have a challenge of early child marriages especially in the farming communities. We are a farming community and in these compounds, we still have men who impregnate young girls, fathers who are marrying underage girls. We need to reflect on such behavior. At times, we are taking advantage of the poverty to abuse these girls,” said Mr Gumbochuma.
He cautioned men to stop abusing their economic power to lure young girls into child marriages and or sexual abuse. Recognizing that child marriages in Zimbabwe are driven by cultural and religious beliefs that promote gender inequality of girls, the campaign is also focusing on four key audiences (parents, out of school adolescent girls and boys, adult men and women, and community leaders) with tailored messages and interventions designed to raise knowledge of the negative impact of child marriages and create empathy for adolescent girls.
