The Sunday Mail
Ashraf Tikiwa
CHILD marriages and abuse of the girl child have been a perennial scourge in most rural regions and districts across the country, thereby crippling the well-being of the girls and their future families.
According to a local Bulawayo-based organisation, the Creative Centre for Communication and Development (CCCD), 21 percent of children (mostly girls) are married before the age of 18.
The organisation went on to add that child marriages bring an abrupt and unnatural end to a girl’s childhood and adolescent through imposing adult roles and responsibilities before she is physically, psychologically and emotionally prepared.
During a visit to Matabeleland North province, Reigate District Reverend Febbie Chuma of Noah’s Ark Ministries, touched on the practice in the area and highlighted the crippling effects it has on the girls.
Reverend Chuma urged leaders to promote and uphold the rights of the girl child and to invest in the girl child as a way of reducing the prevalence of child marriages in Zimbabwe.
“There are numerous cases of rape and child marriages, even by church leaders. More cases are going unreported because church members fear to undermine the ‘men of God’ for fear of being cursed by these unscrupulous leaders,” said Rev Chuma.
She urged communities to start monitoring activities in their churches and report any suspicious unions or marriages.
During the visit, community leaders of Reigate District highlighted that the practice of child marriages was more prevalent in the informal settlements of the area adding that in some religious sects, girls are married at a tender age.
Rev Chuma also went on to challenge some church leaders who condone the practice of child marriages to align their church practices with the new national constitution which prohibits child marriage.
Apostolic Faith Mission pastor, Pastor Caesar Magwentshu echoed Rev Chuma’s sentiments and touched on the broader picture of the churches’ involvement in policy making.
Speaking last week at the AFM Houghton Park highway assembly conference titled “Kingdom Impact”, Pastor Magwetshu highlighted that the church should be engaged in social responsibility and mobilising Christian unions at educational institutions in order to bring up future leaders and workers who are accountable and posses uncorrupted mindsets
“It starts at grassroots level. The other role is direct involvement in formulation of legislation so that the nation will maintain and retain moral values that will not bring a curse upon it like what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Pastor Magwetshu added that the church “as the salt of the earth”, should add “taste” to the nation and provide solutions through God.
“That is the impact of the kingdom that the world is waiting for. If the church returns to the kingdom, then it will return to authority where the entire world will inquire for solutions from it contrary to cocooning and enclosing itself in a religious denomination of dos and don’ts.”
Child marriages continue to paint a gloomy picture across the country. Churches definitely need to play their role in fostering mindsets that do not condone such practices while at the same time influencing policy making.
