By MAGGIE MUSANJE BUKOWA –
Recently, a daily newspaper in Zambia carried a story in which a 14-year-old girl of Choma in Southern Province walked 40 kilometres (km) in the night to go and unite with her 23-year-old lover.
According to the United Nations (UN), this is child marriage.
Child marriage is when an individual below the age of 18 gets married either to another individual who is equally less than 18 or older.
Zambia has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world with 31 per cent of women aged 20-24 being married by the age of 18 while six per cent get married by the age of 15. According to Girls’ Not Brides International, cases of child marriage vary from one province to another with Eastern Province recording rates estimated to be at 60 per cent and Lusaka at 28 per cent.