Collective effort key in the fight against child marriage says MP

Dar es Salaam. Child marriage is a vice that continues to persist despite the consensus that it needs to weed out.

Experts agree that there is need for a national dialogue and research on what should be done to end child marriage by bringing together experts and leaders from communities that still perceive the practice as prestige.

According to Rufiji legislator Mohamed Mchengerwa, government alone cannot afford to address the problem because not only the law, because it is entrenched in norms and cultures of certain communities.

He made the remarks at the high level stakeholders meeting on ending child marriage.

According to him, child marriage continues to rob millions of girls under 18 around the world of their childhood.

 Tanzania has one of the highest child marriage prevalence rates in the world, with about 37 per cent of the women aged 20-24 were married before the age of 18.

“This is a great problem, cannot be handled by single institution, there is a need to include all tribes and all religious sects, because there are some denominations that do not see child marriage as a problem, while other believe according to what constitution that adulthood starts from 18 years,” he said.

Mr Mchengerwa also chairman for parliamentary committee constitutional and legal affairs said there are contradicting views on when a girl can get married.

 “More research is needed in child marriage in order to have a collective decision that will not affect or favor any side in a community to avoid such misunderstandings,” he insisted.        

Country director for Save the Children Peter Walsh said the symposium was mainly to discuss what is wanted by the government, by the religious leaders and the community to help fight the problem of child marriage.

“We also discussed how we can do to make the coming year 2020 be the year were child marriage will be addressed at large percent,” he explained.