Loveness Mudzuru and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi were 16-year-old girls just beginning to plan careers as social workers or nurses when they were forced to marry men they had not chosen.
Their dreams of a better life might have ended that day, as do the dreams of so many girls around the world who are married off while still young girls.
But Loveness and Ruvimbo refused to accept a future not of their own choosing. Now 19 and 18, they are determined to seek justice for themselves and for other girls who are routinely denied the right to decide when and whom to marry. They are asking the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe to declare that no girl or boy may enter into marriage - including marriages recognised in traditional or customary law - before they are 18 years old. They argue that the law must be unequivocal: Child marriage is illegal and unacceptable. The court has yet to rule.
Their courageous legal challenge could make waves not only in Zimbabwe but across Africa - and even globally.
Every year, 15 million child brides are thrust into adulthood while still children themselves. In the aggregate, 700 million women alive today - more than double the total population of the United States - were married or in a union as girls. More than one in three were married before they reached the age of 15. Full story...
Related posts:
Their dreams of a better life might have ended that day, as do the dreams of so many girls around the world who are married off while still young girls.
But Loveness and Ruvimbo refused to accept a future not of their own choosing. Now 19 and 18, they are determined to seek justice for themselves and for other girls who are routinely denied the right to decide when and whom to marry. They are asking the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe to declare that no girl or boy may enter into marriage - including marriages recognised in traditional or customary law - before they are 18 years old. They argue that the law must be unequivocal: Child marriage is illegal and unacceptable. The court has yet to rule.
Their courageous legal challenge could make waves not only in Zimbabwe but across Africa - and even globally.
Every year, 15 million child brides are thrust into adulthood while still children themselves. In the aggregate, 700 million women alive today - more than double the total population of the United States - were married or in a union as girls. More than one in three were married before they reached the age of 15. Full story...
Related posts:
No comments:
Post a Comment