The Ministry of Chiefs and Traditional Affairs has attributed the increase in early marriages to high levels of poverty in rural areas.
Chiefs and Traditional Affairs deputy Minister Susan Kawandami told QFM-News that this why government has put in place policy measures to curb gender based violence and early marriages in rural areas.
Ms. Kawandami also commended traditional leaders for responding well to the programs government has introduced to help curb early marriages in rural areas.
She has since called on NGOs to come on board and help alleviate poverty which she says has contributed to early marriages in rural areas.
Meanwhile, Ms. Kawandami has commended Chief Madzimawe of the Ngoni speaking people in Chipata District of Eastern Province for being appointed to represent the country at a conference on Early Marriages in Africa being held in New York City.
[QFM]
Having a ministry in charge of chiefs and traditional affairs is itself an indictment on the practice of child brides in the country. On the one hand you wish to modernize tradition (sic) while alleging that traditions are perpetuating archaic practices. Do not blame that illusory beast called poverty because you have no idea what poverty is! Dignity trumps poverty and at the moment people’s dignity has been stripped to the bone in that country!
You couldn’t have said it any better.
zambian politics and elite families, the same names resound all the time, the kawandamis, the nkhumbulas, the chibesakundas, the kapwepwes, zaloumis, harringtons, Winas, lewanikas etc – this is what you call the green bloods of zambia. Somehow all the powerful people of this country are related to these families. Prove me wrong if am mistaken. they seem to always share the power and wealth of the country all within their hands somehow.
Am telling you zambians these people dont have our interests at heart. they all lie!!! check what this kawandami woman is saying. Aba kalamba ba Kal has put it so eloquently. they dont know nothing, but they still manage to say something just as a disguise for leadership. We are tired of you green bloods, abena Ng’wena!!!!!
Pedophiles!
Honestly, do you need a NGO to curb a community problems? Where are the community leaders?
Mr Chikwanda is quoted in the media to have said that people only form CSO/NGOs when they are failures and want to make ends meet….
Now his counter the deputy minister is asking the same NGO/CSO for help. Leaders should speak with one voice regarding serious issues!! Specifics should have been used in naming the useless NGOs/CSO, if any.
Increase on early marriages should not be blamed on rural poverty alone but even on urban poverty. Both early marriages and child pregnancies should be blamed on increased family poverty. To families, what is the value of education to a very poor family of 6 that spends almost what they had on the first three children going to school who end up completing their grade 12s but failing to get employed as parents expected but ending up being Kaponyas or drunkards and beating up their parents? If a poor family spends almost all its assets including a farm on sending children to school but these children do not get employed after leaving school then what is the opportunity cost of marrying them early – as bad as it sounds? Let us therefore, support the government with its recent initiatives.