Sally Ncube and Moses Magadza
Child marriage remains a pressing human rights issue globally, with alarming rates and low progress toward addressing the crisis persisting in regions such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
Although there has been a global decline in child marriage, progress is insufficient to meet the Sustainable Development Goal target of eliminating it by 2030.
At the current rate, it will take 300 years to eradicate child marriage entirely, according to the latest research from UNICEF.
The SADC’s statistics are stark, with almost 40% of children married before 18 years in at least five of the region’s countries.
Malawi and Mozambique are part of the top ten countries worldwide with the highest rates of child marriage, with over 50% of children married before 18.
Zambia and Madagascar trail close behind, reporting child marriage prevalence rates exceeding 40%.
Intertwining challenges, such as socio-economic variations in rural and urban settings and teenage pregnancy, paint a grim reality of the underlying issues demonstrated by the child marriage prevalence rates.
In Zimbabwe, rural areas witness higher rates of child marriage than urban settings, while countries such as Niger and Mozambique record the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, at 40.4% and 37.5%, respectively.
Other countries with high teenage pregnancy rates include Chad, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Congo, Madagascar, and Nigeria.
Causes of Child Marriage
A myriad of societal issues continues to contribute to this crisis.
Poverty is a significant driver, pushing families to marry off their daughters to reduce the number of dependents or gain bridal wealth.
Gender inequality, reflected in patriarchal norms and traditions, further oppresses women and girls, facilitating child marriage and further rights violations.
Limited access to education perpetuates the cycle of poverty and child marriage, while inconsistent legal frameworks across Member States hinder effective combat against this practice.
Conflict situations, such as in Mozambique and the DRC, exacerbate vulnerabilities leading to child marriage.
Cultural and religious beliefs, deeply ingrained in many communities, often undermine laws against child marriage.
Institutionally, organisations mandated to protect children’s rights frequently lack adequate financial, human, and technical resources to do so effectively.
Additionally, climate change effects such as droughts, floods, and cyclones lead to a lack of resources, significantly increasing the risk of child marriage and sexual exploitation for girls in the affected regions.
The SADC Model Law on Ending Child Marriage
The SADC Model Law on Ending Child Marriage recognises that child marriage violates children’s rights, including the right to education, health, and protection from harm, and strongly calls for member states to ensure that the minimum age of marriage is set at 18 across the board, without any exceptions.
An analysis of the SADC Model Law produced by Equality Now in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the SADC PF highlights several urgent issues that the region needs to address if progress is to be achieved.
The divide between legal approaches and strategies aimed at influencing social and community norms contributes to the imbalance of prosecution and punishment of perpetrators.
National parliaments must prioritise legal reform as a key strategy in addressing child marriage, ensuring that robust legislation is enacted and enforced.
Deeply entrenched harmful cultural practices, poverty, limited access to education, and sexual and reproductive healthcare slow down progress and hinder efforts to reform marriage and family laws.
Inconsistent and inadequate legal frameworks across SADC countries further complicate these efforts. Only seven out of 16 SADC countries have set the minimum age of marriage at 18 without exceptions. Furthermore, funding challenges in the region push efforts specifically targeted toward child marriage to the margins.
Charting a path of action
Addressing child marriage requires a multifaceted approach involving legal reforms, effective implementation of action plans, long-term social norm changes, adequate funding, and strong, sustained partnerships and collective action.
National parliaments can play a vital role by enacting strong, harmonised laws across the region, establishing a minimum age of marriage at 18 without exceptions applicable to all marriage types.
They should also ensure that related laws surrounding access to healthcare and education are progressive and comprehensive.
Members of Parliament can showcase political will and commitment to addressing child marriage by actively domesticating and implementing international treaties and soft laws like the SADC Model Law on Eradicating Child Marriage and Protecting Children Already in Marriage.
The SADC PF should facilitate collaboration among its members, creating regional pressure for compliance with anti-child marriage laws and supporting knowledge sharing and best practices.
Implementing national action plans by governments and state actors can serve as a strategy for progress, equipping and sensitising policymakers to develop costed plans, monitor their implementation, and engage with non-state actors.
Furthermore, strengthening local coordination with civil society organisations and aligning their work plans with national action plans will enhance efforts to end child marriage.
Long-term, collective action is necessary to change social norms and achieve behaviour change.
This involves engaging all stakeholders as agents of change, such as men and boys, religious and traditional leaders, youth, and survivors.
The media must also play a critical role in raising awareness, challenging harmful norms, and promoting positive stories of change as a catalyst for lasting transformative change towards a Southern Africa free from child marriage.
Additionally, effective funding and partnerships are crucial to tackling the crisis.
Governments and members of Parliament must allocate adequate financial resources for implementing national action plans, laws, and policies to end child marriage while exploring innovative financing solutions to adequately resource protection and support mechanisms for survivors of child marriage.
Engaging civil society organisations in decision-making processes can ensure that ending child marriage interventions are effective, sustainable and adequately address the needs of diverse communities.
Governments should invest in formal and informal education, making it compulsory and adequately budgeted.
This includes integrating teenage mothers and survivors of child marriage into schools and providing comprehensive sexuality education.
Civil society organisations in the SADC region should continue to fulfil their mandates to lower child marriage prevalence rates by establishing cross-regional and global platforms for collective action and collaboration. Creating and strengthening national networks will enhance a common agenda for advocacy, prevention, and service provision. Promoting coordination and capacity building within these networks will link interventions on ending child marriage, facilitate lesson-sharing, and encourage cross-border cooperation for effective prevention and response efforts.
By adopting these recommendations, significant strides can be made towards eradicating child marriage and protecting the rights of young girls across the SADC region.
*Sally Ncube, Regional Representative of Southern Africa, Equality Now. Moses Magadza (PhD) is Media and Communications Manager at the SADC Parliamentary Forum.