WORLEC Trains Female Journalists On Child Marriages

Blantyre district social welfare office has expressed disappointment with increase of child marriage in the district as it has received 191 cases from January to June this year.

This was revealed during Women’s Legal resource Centre WOLEC female journalist capacity building on ending child marriages.

Speaking social welfare officer John Manyumba said T/A Machinjiri is leading with the cases where 47 percent of girls in the area were married followed by T/A lundu and Makata at 28 percent.

“Child marriages expose girls to fistula cases, gender based violence, death and disability among others,” Manyumba said

He attributed the problem to poverty, existence of harmful cultural practices, lack of parenting skills and poor coordination amongst stakeholders.

Manyumba said although efforts to end child marriages are on-going, out of every 10 girls they rescue, only two remain in school.

communications, monitoring, evaluation and research manager for WOLEC said they decided to engage journalists in the fight as they are crucial in ending child marriages through their reporting.

Zgambo said despite Malawi’s prevalence rate on child marriage being at 42 percent as compared to 37 percent in the SADC region, the country is still making progress in the fight.

She added that “although the progress is slow but government and its partners are implementing various interventions which are aimed at ending child marriages.”

Therefore Zgambo called upon all Malawians to work together towards eradicating early marriages in Malawi for the advancement of the girl child.