Mozambique launches plan to end child marriage and get girls in school
Girls' education
Albertina Ricardo, 17, with her child in Inhambane, Mozambique – she dropped out of school and got married at 15
Mozambique, which has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, unveiled a national plan yesterday to end the practice which affects nearly half of the country’s girls.
“(This is) a cause for celebration and should inspire ourAfrican neighbours to do the same,” said Albino Francisco,cordinator of which helped thegovernment draw up the strategy.
Although there has been a slight fall in the rate of childmarriage in Mozambique, campaigners say population growth meansthe number of child brides has increased.
Mozambique has the world’s tenth highest rate of childmarriage – with 48% of girls wed by their 18th birthdayand 14% before they turn 15, according to the United Nations children’sfund .
The national strategy outlines eight pillars key to endingchild marriage including an awareness drive, improving girls’access to education, sexual and reproductive health services,sex education and legal reforms, according to Girls Not Brides.
Students happy to be at school in the city of Beira
Early marriage not only deprives girls of education andopportunities but increases the risk of death or seriouschildbirth injuries if they have babies before their bodies areready.
Child brides are often disempowered and at greater risk ofdomestic and sexual violence and HIV, experts say. Mozambican news site Noticias, which reported the launch,described child marriage as “a social evil”.
The reasons behind child marriage vary across the countrybut the common factors are poverty and lack of education.
In some areas, campaigners say girls as young as nine gothrough initiation rites where they learn how to please a man inbed and perform domestic duties as part of preparations for marriage.
Worldwide, 15 million girls are married off as childrenevery year.
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