TRADITIONAL leaders in Mutasa have said the fight against child marriages in the district is being frustrated by leaders of traditional churches especially apostolic sects as well as parents of the victims.
This emerged during a media tour facilitated by the Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare ministry with support from Unicef’s Child Protection Fund Il and the Swedish International Development Agency.
Traditional leaders in the district recently underwent training centred on child protection and violence against children.
Headman Cosmas Sakupwanya said some leaders of traditional churches were encouraging practices such as child marriages and corporal punishment.
“We have a great number of the population in this community which goes to these churches and they are working against the teachings that we are giving to the community to prevent child marriages, but when they go to church, they unlearn those lessons and start to be fed their beliefs,” he said.
“This has become a major challenge for us as village heads.
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"These churches are unlearning the communities what we have been teaching them about child protection and it's undermining our efforts.”
Sakupwanya also noted that even during investigations, parents of the young girls try by all means to hide the necessary information that is necessary for the probe.
“We also face a challenge whereby even if you go to the house where the child was exposed to child marriage, they hide information of the whereabouts of the child," he said.
"Sometimes they can go as far as hiding the child’s birth certificate which we use to prove the age of the child."
Sakupwanya said despite these challenges, they had stepped up efforts to investigate cases of child abuse and child marriages.
“We have intensified our efforts to curb these cases and we are reporting them to the police. The training that we got through the programme by government has empowered us to know how to handle these cases and be able to thoroughly investigate before we hand over the cases to the police," he said.
“In some cases we go on the ground to take back the girl to her family or take her to Social Welfare where we see that the child is still at risk of being sent back to the marriage. We might have a challenge on those that may be taken out of the country by their partners after marriage where we cannot cross the border to follow them."
Headman George Chidavanyika said more awareness campaigns were needed to protect the rights of the girl child.
Chidavanyika noted the complexities associated with child protection in rural areas where traditional and religious leaders often wield significant influence.
“We have had a big challenge of young girls being exposed to child marriages from certain churches and the parents of the young girls normally hide this information but we have devised a method where we have people in the community, who have ears on the ground for any new developments, who immediately inform us, then we follow up,” he said.
“We have been pushing for people to understand the risks of child marriages and I think we need to do more awareness campaigns to help these people understand that every child needs to go to school, have their education and grow up like any other child in the community and get married at the right time.”