THREE junior councillors and some high school going girls in Kwekwe district reportedly eloped during the lockdown, it has been revealed.
Speaking during a SASA! Faith review and plan meeting
hosted by Katswe Sistahood in Kwekwe on Tuesday morning, an official from the
Ministry of Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation in Kwekwe district revealed that
three junior councillors under Zibagwe Rural District Council eloped during the
lockdown, a situation which he described as disturbing since these children are
supposed to lead by example in the communities they save.
“During the lockdown we lost three junior councillors to
child marriage after they eloped. “It is quite disturbing because these junior
councillors are supposed to be role models in community and not behaving
otherwise.
“We have heard so many stories of this nature during the
lockdown and it is possible that maybe a half of the form three students might
not go back to school because of this issue,” said Edmord Gomo.
In addition, Katswe sistahood district officer Chengetai
Chininga also revealed that as an organisation they also received cases of
child marriages during the lockdown when children were not going to school
spending most of their time idle.
“We have received cases of child marriages although we do
not have the statistics but we received such reports,” she said.
Meanwhile, Gender lens report launched by the Swedish
Embassy recently revealed that according to World Economic Forum, an estimated
number of four million girls are at risk of falling for child marriages in the
next two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In Zimbabwe, schools were closed in March to curtail the spread of the Coronavirus and the government loosened the lockdown restrictions recently which also brought about the opening of schools in phases. H Metro
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