Kwekwe based lawyer, Advocate Francis Mapurisa has called for the enactment of a Child Marriages Bill that will speak explicitly on child marriages.

“Let’s draft a Bill that will speak specifically on child marriages and not just a broad Marriages Act that touches a little on child marriages,” said Advocate Mapurisa.

According to Section 3 (81), of the Constitution of Zimbabwe a child is defined as every boy or girl below the age of 18. Child “marriage” is a marital union where either spouse is below 18 years of age, although girls are the most affected. Plan International reports that as many as 31 per cent of girls under the age of 18 are married and of these, 4 per cent are married when they are under 15 years of age. Section 78 of the Constitution (Marriage Rights) sets a minimum age for marriage at 18 and prohibits forced marriage. In addition, Section 26 (1) of the Constitution requires the State to takes appropriate measures to ensure that no marriage is entered into without the free and full consent of the intended spouses. Furthermore, Section 26 (2) of the Constitution requires the State to take measures to ensure that children are not pledged in marriage. Yet despite all these provisions child marriages continue to escalate yearly. Hence the call for a specific law that will see that more deterrent measures being meted out on offenders.

Currently, there is a bill being debated in Parliament the Marriages Bill, 2019 which repeals and replaces the current Customary Marriages Act and the Marriage Act. This means that if adopted there will be one new Act guiding marriages in Zimbabwe. However, this Bill does not speak about custodial penalties for people who marry off or marry children.

Member of Parliament for Gweru Urban Constituency, Honourable Brian Dube concurred with the call for an unambiguous law that deals with child marriages. Honourable Dube said that having such an Act will demonstrate political commitment to ending sexual exploitation. He added that the best way to deal with sexual exploitation is to criminalise the act and put stiffer deterrent sentences of up to 10 years.

“We can’t even call it child marriage because legally it’s incorrect, marriage is for adults and it can only be referred to as marriage when it’s lawful. Child sexual exploitation is escalating because of impunity. Those mapostori, makorokoza and other child molesters are not being seriously prosecuted and penalised so there are not deterred from bad behaviour. It is ideal to come up with a specific law on child sexual exploitation. If we are serious enough to deal with stock theft, we can’t fail to deal with child sexual exploitation,” he said. Presently, Zimbabwe has a Stock Theft Prevention Act (Chapter 9:18) and anyone who is found guilty of this offense gets a mandatory sentence of 9 years.

Advocate Mapurisa pointed out that there is need for proper enforcement of all legal frameworks that safeguard children and no person should be deemed above the law when it comes to dealing with child sexual offenders. “We need an act that criminalises people that force children into marriage, which criminalises a perpetrator, parents who accept bride price for a young child. It should be made punishable by a custodial sentence so that parents do not accept money from majors for their minor children,” he said.

During an online conversation around child marriages with people from Zhombe and surrounding areas, citizens pointed out that a combination of strategies that target socio-cultural and economic lives of people including poverty reduction, access to sufficient social safety nets need also to be implemented.