Blessings Chidakwa Mash West Correspondent
Chief Musambakaruma of Kariba has said Government needs to consider penalising parents or guardians who approve child marriages. There are concerns that some parents and guardians are sanctioning such abhorrent unions, while others are even actively facilitating such relationships.

In an interview recently, Chief Musambakaruma of Nyaminyami in Kariba District said stiff and deterrent penalties should be imposed on such parents.

“It only needs our Government to seriously consider giving deterrent sentences not only to those who marry children, but also those who would have given blessings to such marriages,” he said.

“In most cases being encountered in rural areas, parents shun reporting child marriage perpetrators to the police, preferring out of court settlements. That is intolerable and in cases where we are aware of that set up, we appeal for the wrath of the law to be applied.”

Chief Musambakaruma urged Government to speed up the alignment of marriage-related laws. At a political level, Zanu-PF’s Mashonaland West Province Women’s League has also gone on an awareness drive against child marriages.

The party’s provincial secretary for health, Cde Precious Chinhamo, said the ruling party was working to reduce child marriages through holding awareness campaigns across the province.

 

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