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ADDIS ABABA, May 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – More than 500 girls have been rescued from child marriage in northern Ethiopia since schools closed due to the new coronavirus, a regional official said, as fears grow that the pandemic you are investing years of work. to stop youth unions.
Ethiopia closed its schools in mid-March, sending 26 million children home, where girls are at increased risk of being forced to marry illegally under the age of 18, which some human rights activists consider to be a form of slavery.
“The number is increasing,” said Asnaku Deres, director of the office for women, children and youth affairs in the northern Amhara region, adding that local authorities have detained 540 child marriages in the past two months.
“We received the advice before the wedding preparation took place and we were able to step in and prevent it from happening … If the advice had not been given, these girls would have married,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The UN forecasts that there could be an additional 13 million child marriages by 2030, as COVID-19 affects household incomes and hampers global efforts to end the practice.
Ethiopia is home to 15 million girlfriends with one of the highest early marriage rates in the world, according to the UN Children’s Agency, UNICEF, but has come a long way toward its goal of ending the illegal practice by 2025. .
Four out of 10 girls are married before the age of 18 in Ethiopia, compared to six out of 10 in 2005, said Adele Khodr, UNICEF representative in Ethiopia.
“We are concerned that Ethiopia may reverse or fail to sustain some of the gains that children have made for children in the past two decades as a result of this great crisis,” he said.
SLAVERY
The Girls Not Brides campaign group says that child marriage deprives girls of education and opportunities, jeopardizes their health and increases the risks of exploitation, sexual violence, domestic abuse and death in childbirth.
On average, girls in the Amhara region marry for the first time at age 15, the lowest age in the country, according to the latest government data, with high rates in poor rural communities where sexual purity and the main roles of women are wives and mothers.
According to Asnaku, community-based programs with elders and religious leaders, public awareness, and legal sanctions have been key to addressing child marriage.
“The practice has decreased significantly … (but) it has re-emerged recently in some areas,” he said.
“In the days before, we were able to easily get information through schools and be able to track if the problem was happening and then be able to stop it. Now that is not possible due to the closure of schools. ”
The Australia-based Walk Free Foundation Global Slavery Index estimates that 40 million people worldwide are modern slaves, of whom 15.4 million live in forced marriages. (Report by Emeline Wuilbercq; Katy Migiro edition. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers the lives of people around the world who are struggling to live freely or fairly. Visit news.trust .org)
