Source: Tanzania Daily News

How child-friendly is the country? The Child-Friendliness Index 2013, which also compares progress, reveals that those scoring highest as the 'most child-friendly' are Mauritius, South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt, Cape Verde, Rwanda, Lesotho, Algeria, Swaziland and Morocco.

 

 

Most of those scoring lowest are under-investing in education and health and failing to put in place adequate legal protection to children.

In general, the research found that more and more governments are allocating a larger share of their budgets to sectors that have a direct impact on children including health and education and most governments are taking steps to enhance the legal protection of children from abuse and exploitation. A child-friendly country is one that protects girls and boys from child marriage.

This is the message in many areas of the Gender Equality and Women Empowerment programme (GEWEII) being implemented by Tanzania Media Women Association (TAMWA), in partnership with four other organisations that defend the rights of women and children.

In the report, the legal protection provided for by governments is one of the compelling components of our ranking how 'childfriendly' a government is. This includes the legal framework in place to protect children from harmful practices, such as child marriage, because as we know Africa alone is home to 14 out of 20 countries with the highest rates of child marriage. Africa alone is home to 14 out of 20 countries with the highest rates of child marriage.

Of 54 African countries reviewed in this particular case, 33 have set the minimum age of marriage at 18 for both girls and boys, while a further four have set it above the age of 18 for both (these are Algeria, Lesotho, Libya and Rwanda). This sets a strong legal framework to help protect children from child marriage and keep children, particularly girls in school.

In the remainder of African countries, the minimum age is either discriminatory or below 18. In terms of addressing the challenges of child marriage, Kenya is a good case in point with one of the strongest legal and policy frameworks in the region, having ratified most of the core instruments related to child rights and having made good progress in harmonising child-related laws with international standards - it was one of the first countries in Africa to introduce a consolidated children's statute.

Child marriage is punishable by imprisonment and fines and children subjected to marriage below the specified minimum age are entitled to measures of special protection.

But despite such positive examples, sadly the report found that far too many countries have failed to align their family laws with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC).

Not only do 17 African countries either have a discriminatory minimum age (meaning that girls and boys are allowed to marry at different ages) or allow marriage below 18 years of age, many have a discrepancy between the minimum age of marriage and minimum age of sexual consent (it is important that the age of marriage is higher as consummation is a prerequisite for a valid marriage).

For example, in Sudan where the minimum age of sexual consent for a girl is 18, children as young as 10 are legally allowed to marry and the law specifically protects the husband from penal sanctions for sex within marriage to a girl under 18. In some cases, young girls can get fistula.

Fistula is a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of women, sadly 90 per cent of them in Africa. An obstetric fistula is a childbirth complication due to obstructed labour when the tissues between a woman's vagina and her bladder or rectum are damaged from the continuous pressure from the baby's head stuck in the birth canal.

The dead tissue falls off resulting in a hole through which the woman continuously leaks urine or faeces or sometimes both. The tragedy of a fistula patient begins when she goes into labour. Try as she might, the baby won't budge. Hours pass, days even and her suffering continues.

She is in a remote village with no midwife or access to medical attention. Added to her physical pain and suffering is the mental anguish of a lack of information about her situation. Her baby dies inside her and has to be extracted, sometimes piece by piece.

With her dead child goes her dream of motherhood and that desperate ache and incomprehension that accompanies every woman who has miscarried or lived through the birth of a stillborn child. Then her second tragedy begins. She can't understand why she is leaking urine or faeces or worse still, both. Soon she gets used to the constant drip of her bodily wastes down her leg and to the strong smells she emits.

Her husband sends her home to her parents. In some cases, her smell becomes so unbearable, even her parents put her out, consigned to a hut far from the house, sometimes having access to others only when food is passed to her, in some cases, using a shovel to maintain distance.

One of the populations most vulnerable to fistulas are young brides. Child marriage is a global problem with an estimated 14 million girls given out in marriage before they turn 18, some as young as 9.14 of the 20 countries with the highest rate of child marriage are in Africa.

The toxic combination of a young girl having sex, getting pregnant and going through childbirth when her body is not developed enough accounts for at least 25 per cent of known fistula cases. You do not have to have a daughter to imagine the impact of child marriage.

It cuts across countries, cultures, ethnicities and religions. These children are robbed of their childhood, denied their rights to health, education and security, trapping them in the vicious cycle of poverty.

And yet these decisions to hand out girls in early marriage are mostly taken by those who should be responsible for protecting them - their own parents and guardians - sometimes in the name of tradition. Ending child marriage must feature in a new development agenda, but, the authors write, there is much that can be done now to tackle child marriage and to improve the well-being of girls.

One specific action is to ensure that sexual, reproductive and maternal health programmes, which are usually designed for older women, also cater to the needs of adolescent girls and child brides.

Another concrete step is to improve birth and marriage registration systems, which would make it easier to prove girls' age at marriage and to reach child brides with targeted programmes and services. There is also a need for greater investment in programmes that support girls at risk of child marriage. marrying later in life is better for girls.

• Tanzania