UNICEF pledges to assist Zim in implementing children’s laws

Farirai Machivenyika

Senior Reporter

THE United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has committed itself to assist Zimbabwe in implementation of various laws that have been enacted by Government to protect and promote the rights of children.

This was said by UNICEF’s country representative Ms Etona Ekole when she paid a courtesy call on Speaker of the National Assembly, Advocate Jacob Mudenda, in Harare yesterday.

Government has passed laws such as the Marriages Act and the Criminal Laws Amendment (Protection of Children and Young Persons) Act that bar child marriages and raised the age of sexual consent from 16 to 18 in line with the Constitution.

“We also spoke very much about some of the Bills that have been passed and the importance of implementation of these Bills. It’s one thing to actually pass certain laws, but it’s another thing to implement them and I assured him of our commitment to work with the various parties to ensure the various Acts such as the Marriages Act can be implemented with the various ministries, civil society organisations, as well as community leaders,” she said.

Ms Ekole said they also discussed UNICEF’s support for the country’s education sector.

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“We had some interesting discussions on UNICEF’s support to Zimbabwe but more importantly it was great to hear the vision of the Speaker, especially on education. We talked about the importance of education generally and the education crises in Africa. We talked about the need for us to pay more attention and commit our resources to basic education. He had some extremely good ideas about facilitating the engagement of universities in supporting this effort, working also with vocational centres, but really stressing the importance of education as for today, but also for the future,” she said.