250 girls in Nsanje return to school
About 250 girls from Senior Chief Tengani in Nsanje have returned to school courtesy of interventions led by the NGO Board in partnership with Women’s Legal Resource Centre (Wolrec) and National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust.
In an interview, Nsanje District social worker Gertrude Kamanga commended the NGO Board for mapping the area to enable non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to implement interventions to end child marriages.
He said as a result, Wolrec and Nice intensified awareness campaign against child marriages and led community leaders to terminate the marriages.
Said Kamanga: “Previously, girls aged between 15 and 17 were getting married because the area had no NGOs to protect children from sexual abuse and early marriages.
“However, the NGO Board’s initiative led to Wolrec and Nice conducting a campaign against child marriages.”
However, he appealed for more NGOs in other hard-to-reach areas for the intervention.
Nsanje District social welfare officer Chikumbutso Salifu said the district is doing well in the fight against child marriages.
“Previously, most NGO shunned hard-to-reach areas, but the situation is different now,” he said.
He said out of 417 registered child marriages in the district, 250 were terminated in Senior Chief Tengani.
Nsanje has 80 local and international NGOs, according to NGO Board Nsanje District services centre officer Patrick Aluzioh.
