Gender Commission Calls For End To Child Marriages

The Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC) on Wednesday called for an end to child marriages and for severe punishment to be meted on perpetrators.

ZGC chief executive Virginia Muwanigwa bemoaned the arrest of offenders without punitive conviction. She said:

We must put to an end other forms of child sexual and economic abuse that lies in gender inequality that undervalues girls.

Forced marriages are unacceptable and perpetrators must be punished.

This comes as Women Affairs, Community and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni minister Sithembiso Nyoni has called for the arrest of a Sanyati couple who married off their 15-year-old daughter to a Chinese national.

Nyoni also called for the arrest of the Chinese national who reportedly paid US$2 000 as bride price on 26 November.

The death of 14-year-old Memory Machaya during childbirth at a Johanne Masowe shrine in Marange in July brought to the fore the abuse of the girl child through child marriages.

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