Government Committed to Ending Child Marriage

Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare Minister Patricia Kaliati has underscored Malawi government's commitment towards ending child marriage which is currently at 50 percent in the country. Kaliati said this during an Every Woman, Every Child high level event at the ongoing 60th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York, US.
The high level meeting, which was presided over by United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, was organised to discuss progress made and challenges faced on gender equality, and empowerment of women and girls across the globe. The minister informed the meeting that Malawi rescued a total of 600,000 girls in 2015 alone following implementation and application of various interventions to end child marriage.
The interventions included campaigns to end child marriage and enactment and enforcement of legal frameworks like the Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Act and the Gender Equality Act. She added that active involvement of traditional leaders had also borne fruit as they had enacted by-laws in their areas to end the practice. Kaliati further said the re-admission policy for girls who drop out of school and mobilisation of mothers groups were also helping to end child marriage and get girls back in school.
A role model on the local level is female Senior Chief Inkosi Kachindamoto of Dedza: Coninciding with the governmental agenda she already in June 2015 had terminated 330 child marriages in her territory to enrol the children back in school. (Nyasa Times)