An end to Tanzania's child brides?
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Transcript
00:00 Sporting her signature motto on her t-shirt,
00:02 "A girl with a dream is fire,"
00:04 girl rights activist Rebecca Gyumi
00:06 spoke to a room of young schoolchildren in Dar es Salaam.
00:10 She handed out sanitary pads
00:12 and spoke to the children about gender equality.
00:15 She's a leading voice in her country.
00:17 In 2016, she filed a petition to scrap legislation
00:21 that allows child marriage.
00:22 "It's important to stop parents from allowing their girls
00:27 to be married off at a young age,
00:29 but it's even more important to push the government
00:32 to issue a law which bans underage marriage."
00:35 In response to the petition,
00:39 Tanzania's High Court issued a landmark ruling in 2016,
00:43 raising the legal age of marriage for girls to 18.
00:47 But the government never issued a formal ban,
00:50 despite the High Court upholding its decision in 2019.
00:54 The authorities recently said that the government
00:56 was ready to start considering a bill
00:58 amending the marriage law.
00:59 But this has come up against resistance.
01:02 "We faced a lot of challenges.
01:06 Sometimes members of our community think Rebecca
01:09 is working for foreign countries to destroy our norms.
01:12 But we have to stand for our nation
01:18 and fight against the local ideology,
01:21 because we love our community and our nation."
01:24 According to the UN, around three in 10 girls in Tanzania
01:27 are married during childhood.
01:28 According to the UN, around three in ten girls in Tanzania are married during childhood.