AT A CROSSROADS: Rebeca Gyumi makes us proud of championing rights
Rebeca Gyumi, an advocate of the High Court, challenged the law permitting such marriages. PHOTO | FILE
That in Tanzania and Africa in general we still have some VERY retrogressive culture is a sordid fact. The case of female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriages are just but examples. I was shocked to read in the Daily Nation (December 15, 2018), how December is regarded as FGM season, and East African residents have devised new methods to beat FGM ban.
It is so tragic that in our age and time, and over 50 years of independence that any girl child should be forced to undergo such a cruel act.
According to World Health Organisation over “200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated.”
This means many adult women across Africa have to contend with marks of horror resulting from forced FGM during their childhood.
And apart from adverse health implications that the act was designed to disempower the woman, it makes it incredibly more dehumanizing. It’s only paramount that those caught forcing children in FGM belong to jail.
For child marriages, the case is also very depressing. Only recently, one of the most famous regional commissioners, Aggrey Mwanri, in one of the video clips doing rounds, he makes it clear that in Tabora Region, anyone who practises child marriage will face the full force of law.
This is from the parents of the bride, the bridegroom, and all other enablers of the act. It’s my prayer that Mwanri, with the support of the whole government machinery, succeeds to wipe out children marriages!
Before 2016, child marriage was legal with consent of parents. Girls could be married off at 14 years old but boys could only marry at 18. Rebeca Gyumi, an advocate of the High Court, challenged the law permitting such marriages.
She won the case and the age of child marriage for girls in Tanzania was set to 18.
That the good lady used constitutional means to end child marriages in Tanzania made all advocates of human rights proud of her. This won her international acclamation.
Yes, she used her education, her legal profession for the good of all women in Tanzania. How many of us use our education that way? Rebeca has become a symbol across the world of fighting against child marriages.
Recently, she was one of the recipients of UN-HumanRights Award. While receiving the award, she was emphatic that it is very important for young people “to be brave and speak our truth.”
The award is the “UN’s highest human rights honor today”, according to the body’s Human Rights Director, Peggy Hicks.
CNN reported about her, that at “31 years old, Rebeca has a list of accomplishments anyone twice her age would be proud of.”
As we celebrate her achievements, we must not lose sight to the fact of the struggles, the pain in her fight for girls’ right as human rights.
A number of online sources have it that dear motherland allegedly has “one of the highest child marriage prevalence rates in the world,” with “one girl out of 3 is married before the age of 18” Hoping that this is not true. But if it is, then we have an uphill task as a nation. It is no longer a question of law but of massive education, so that we can change our people mindset.
The practice of child marriage only makes the vicious circle of poverty worse.
On the brighter side, it’s good to know that our government has increased efforts to tackle FGM, child marriage and teenage pregnancies.
Ummy Mwalimu, minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, has been very vocal in the fight against FGM, child marriages and violence against women. I applaud her commitment.
