adminDaisy Jeremani Gender Editor
THE rise in cases of domestic violence, teenage pregnancies and early marriages has jolted the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development into embarking on a three-week awareness campaign in Bulawayo.The campaign which is being held at tertiary institutions, high schools and shopping centres is also a prelude to the launch of the country and province’s commemorations of International Women’s Day.
The cocktail of events began last week and will run until 4 April. Today the campaign will be at Killarney squatter camp and Waterford Shopping Centre while tomorrow it will be at St Peters’ and Old Pumula.
Yesterday they held road shows in the morning and afternoon at Cowdray Park and Nkulumane’s Sekusile Shopping centres.
In an interview, Bulawayo Provincial Development Officer in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Vaidah Mashangwa said the national commemorations will be held at Harare International Conference Centre on March 26, while Bulawayo province will mark the day on April 4.
She said they did not want to mark the international event on a single day, but to spread empowering messages to the right audiences over a long period of time for impact.
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “Equality for Women is Progress for All.” The day is marked yearly on March 8 so Zimbabwe would commemorate it belatedly late this month.
Mashangwa said they spent the whole of last week visiting institutions of higher learning and vocational centres raising awareness on inheritance laws and domestic violence. So far they have been to Hillside Teachers’ College, Bulawayo Polytechnic, Methodist Sizinda, Lobengula and Westgate Vocational Training centres. They have postponed to later dates their meetings with Nust, United College of Education and Zimbabwe School of Mines students.
“Next week we will be going to secondary schools in Bulawayo’s five districts to teach school children on the dangers of child marriages and teenage pregnancies.
“We want to raise awareness at individual up to community level,” said Mashangwa.
They will cover schools in the Reigate, Mzilikazi, Imbizo, Khami and Bulawayo Central districts. Among the schools to be covered are Mpopoma, Ihlathi, Pumula, Northlea, Induna and Gifford High Schools.
Although there are pieces of legislation such as Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC) that seek to promote children’s rights, child marriages and other negative practices are still rife in the country.
According to a recent research, child marriages are commonest in Johane Marange sect, with 21 percent of the married women in the organisation under the age of 18.
“It’s against that backdrop that more effort has to be done in order for us to stop untold suffering and pain to young girls,” Mashangwa said
Online Reporter