Model Law on Eradicating Child Marriages And Protecting Children Already In on marriages In The Southern Africa Presenting Author- Ms Eva Jhala Co Authors: Boemo Sekgoma, Moses Magadza, Loveena Dookhony & Claire Musonda

BACKGROUND The Southern Africa region has one of the highest numbers of child marriage. Close to 50% of girls in Mozambique and Malawi and 40% of girls in Zambia marry before the age of 18. The causes are complex and interrelated. Social, cultural, religious and economic factors influence norms, values and behavior on individual, community and society level. The Model Law on the Eradication of Child Marriage and Protection of Children already in Marriages will serve legislators in early rationalisation of the root issues which adversely affect the survival and development of the child and help flashed them out.

Rationale The eradication of child marriages is of absolute importance for the Southern Africa Development Parliamentary Forum if the SADC Member States are to develop both socially and economically. Although certain civil society organisations have put in positive interventions and measures to try to eradicate child marriage, the desired and real impact has not been achieved. This is evident from the increase in grim statistics of child marriage, education completion rates, especially for the girl child, gender disparities, parental neglect, high child mortality rates and high incidences of HIV/AIDS among the youth.

OBJECTIVES The Model Law will encourage Governments to be accountable in the execution of policies, enactment of laws and coming up with strategic plans and measures aimed at eradicating child marriage, protecting children already in marriage and ensuring SRHRs of young persons. The Model law uses a human rights based approach as it is underpinned by a strong restatement of the child's rights and the principles and concepts on the best interest of the child, including access to SRHRs. The Model Law will serve as a guidance, yardstick and an advocacy tool for legislators in the SADC region or elsewhere. It provides best practice language, without loopholes, which is easily transposed or transplanted, with necessary adaptations. Policy makers and legislative drafters will use it to address relevant areas in their laws requiring legislative reform without usurping the authority of national legislatures.

METHODS A mixed methodology approach has been and will continue to be used for the collection, evaluation and validation of quantitative and qualitative data from the various sources such as stakeholders, laws, policies, legal audits, regional and international conventions, comparative laws and other studies. This approach is based on the concept of ‘triangulation’, which involves the determination and authentication of a given situation through several sources of information and feed back to stakeholders.

CONTENT The Model Law addresses five main thematic areas addressing the drivers of child marriage and provides solutions t deal with the scourge. It provides for:  prohibition of child marriage and betrothal of children under 18 years of age;  measures and interventions to prevent child marriage;  measures and interventions to mitigate the effects of child marriage, especially for children already in marriage;  access to data and information on children and child marriage; and  monitoring, evaluation and enforcement provisions.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Despite the fact that the majority of SADC Member States do have legislation in one form or the other to prevent child marriage, such as penalizing sex with minors, age of majority laws, rights of the child laws, anti - gender based violence laws, anti-trafficking laws and forbidding child marriage, child marriage is still a daily occurrence as most of these laws do not talk to each other while others are inconsistent or discriminatory as to age and gender thus creating loopholes for the continued practice of child sexual abuse. An appropriate and well streamlined legal and institutional framework incorporating regional practices and shared experiences is imperative to prevent and eradicate child marriage. Countries in Africa should use this model Law to create a robust and uniform framework to stop the scourge and leaving no place to run to where a person can commit this act of sexual abuse against children.