adminamong stakeholders.
Minister of Chiefs and Traditional Affairs Professor Nkandu Luo said the campaign is aimed at curbing rampant cases of early marriages, especially in rural areas.
The implementation of the plan, she said would be done in partnership with other government institutions, civil society organisations and development partners.
“The campaign is initially planned for three years. The national launch is planned for April 13, 2013 to be graced by the First Lady of Zambia, Dr Christine Kaseba-Sata in chiefdom to be identified.
“The criteria to be used in choosing chiefdom will be the chiefdom which has the highest prevalence of early marriages,” she was quoted as saying by the paper.
According to her, early marriage has been identified as a vice that negatively impacts or linked to activities in communities that were likely to hinder development in the country such as gender-based violence sexual and reproductive health rights as well as human development.
Zambia is battling with the problem of early marriages, especially in rural areas, where girls are seen as a source of wealth by many impoverished families.
“Recently, a senior government official in the western part of the country expressed shock when he discovered that about 40 girls at a local school were found pregnant in a year, prompting him to call for urgent measures to tackle the problem.
According to Unicef, between 2011 and 2020, more than 140 million girls would become brides, and that if current levels of early child marriages continue, 14.2 million girls annually or 39 000 daily will marry too young. – Xinhua.
Online Reporter