By Mamoletsane Khati
African children suffer from neglect, deprivation, poor
nutrition, poor access to health
services, violence and other
harmful social and cultural
practices that affect children’s
wellbeing and expose them to
discriminative vices like child
marriages.
Whether it happens to a girl or a
boy, child marriage violates
children’s rights. It undermines
almost all the foundational principles of child rights, namely:
non-discrimination, the right to life, survival and
development, participation and the child’s best interests. It
also inflicts discrimination resulting in children being
deprived of basic rights to health, education, development
and equality.
Different stakeholders have implemented numerous
interventions to address child marriages, taking a multi-
sectorial and multifaceted approach. For Panos Institute
Southern Africa (PSAf), these interventions include
empowering the media through training of journalists,
media fellowships for investigative reporting, and producing
media briefs to foster informed coverage of the subject.
Through these interventions, PSAf envisages increased
awareness on the impact of child marriages, which can help
mobilise support to reduce children’s vulnerabilities.
Although different interventions have been developed to
tackle child marriages, challenges remain, resulting in lack
of effective implementation. One such challenge facing
most African countries is on the definition of who the child
is. Most countries in southern Africa have dualist legal
systems whereby ratification of international and regional
legal obligations does not automatically become part of the
domestic laws without domestication.
While international and regional treaties like the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the
Children’s Charter, among others, define a child as anyone
under the age of 18, some domestic laws state otherwise.
For example, in Zambia, the Penal Code Chapter 87 of the
Laws of Zambia, mentions that a 15-year-old may be liable
for the crime of defilement thus exposing a child to adult
criminal prosecution before the general age of majority
which is 18 years. There is need therefore for domestication
of the international and regional treaties which most of our
countries are party to, to ensure compliance to child rights
protection.
Most of these countries also use statutory and customary
laws to form the domestic legislation. This application of the
statutory law and the customary law gives rise to difficulties
in ending child marriages. For Example, the Marriage Act in
Malawi, states that the legal age for marriage is 21 years of
age, but allows for marriage below this age with the consent
of an adult. Mozambique uses the monist legal systems
whereby ratified international and regional treaties
automatically become part of domestic law. While
Mozambican law currently prohibits marriage of girls aged
below 16, it allows such marriage only with parental consent
for girls between 16 and 18.
Customary or religious marriages usually do not specify the
age of marriage, as long as the parents provide consent for
the marriage. These types of marriages provide a different
definition of a child which is usually based on culture. The
customary view defines a child as someone who has not
reached puberty. By the time a child reaches puberty and
can be able to carry out adulthood activities, they are
exposed to social and cultural factors including initiation
ceremonies which are said to prepare them for adulthood.
However, these fuel child marriages as some children reach
puberty as early as 12 or 14 years of age. It is therefore vital
to harmonise the statutory and customary laws on marriage
to address this mismatch.
Like Nelson Mandela once said, “there can be no keener
revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its
children”. As we celebrate the Day of the African Child on
June 16, under the theme: “25 Years after the Adoption of
the African Children’s Charter: Accelerating our Collective
Efforts to End Child Marriage in Africa” , we all need to think
about how we treat children. Governments should look into
strategies that best protect children against child marriages.
These can include collaborating with different stakeholders
affected by and working to end child marriage such as the
media, traditional and religious leaders, communities, and
children. Credit: Panos
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About the Author
Mamoletsane Khati is PSAf Regional Programme
Manager for Health and Development. For feedback,
email mamoletsane@panos.org.zm.
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