By CHRISTBEL CHIWILA –
SEVENTY girls in the range of 12 and 17 years old have been withdrawn from early marriages in Muchinga Province.
Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) Muchinga Province acting coordinator Losaria Nyirenda said in an interview that the girls have been taken back to school with the help of the Social Welfare Department and Campaign Female Education (CFE) who were supporting them in school.
She said the girls were withdrawn from the marriages last year and offered counseling before being taken back to school.
Ms Nyirenda added that YWCA in Muchinga had inadequate transport and that with support, the organisation would do better in rendering support to the girls.
She said the organisation started conducting sensitisation programmes in January last year to address issues of gender-based violence (GBV) and so far 300 villages have been covered in the province.
Ms Nyirenda said in each village, a GBV committee was formed to help women who were affected by GBV cases.
She said during the exercise, various cases were recorded with 71 defilement, 76 sexual abuse, 148 emotional physiological abuse, and 112 child maintenance cases.
Seventy cases were early marriages.
“These are the cases that we have being working on for the last one year and we are hopping to extend to other villages around,”she said
