Stephen Chandisareva.
Harare,Zimbabwe (News of the South)- Government has been urged to build more schools in rural communities so as to reduce school-dropouts and early marriages due to long distances travelled.
Addressing journalists at a media workshop on Children’s rights in Harare on Tuesday, Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children Programmes Manager Maxim Murungweni urged the government to build more schools in rural areas to reduce school dropouts and void early child marriages due to long distances travelled to where the schools are situated.
“Government should build more schools in rural communities to reduce the school-dropouts due to long distance travelled to attend education.
“Many communities have few school for children to attend and this results in children having to travel long distances 50 to 70km everyday going to school.
“At the end of the day, young girls end drop out from school and end up being married at young ages of 12-15years old.’
He said laws like the Children Act needs to be reviewed and aligned with the constitution so that children get protected.
“We are advocating for laws lke the Children Act to pass through in Parliament so that it clearly stipulates that any girl child before the age of 18 should not be married.
Statistics gathered by Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council on child marriages recently revealed that 27% of young women being married at the age of 15-19 are predominantly found in rural areas as compared to 16% being married in urban areas.
Despite relative progress they has remained a culture that still promotes child marriages through wife /husband inheritances and child pledging to avert hunger for poor families.
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