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Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu in Nairobi, Kenya

MEDIA practitioners from Africa have been urged to identify and amplify harmful traditional practices in various communities in an objective manner to promote elimination of these practices as they are a violation of human rights.

This emerged during a three-day capacity building media training on sensitive reporting on harmful practices held at Best Western Plus Hotel in Westlands, Nairobi in Kenya organised by the African Union Commission.

According to the Unicef June 2022 statistical report on child marriages, eastern and southern Africa are among the regions with the highest prevalence of child marriage in the world. Nearly one third of the region’s young women were married under the age 18.

An estimated 650 million girls and women around the world were married before the age of 18. Over 50 million of them reside in eastern and southern Africa, with most being reported in Ethiopia with 17,3 million. Zimbabwe accounts for 1,4 million.

In Zimbabwe, one in three young women were married in union at childhood. 241 000 girls and women were married or in union before age 15 while 1,4 million were married or in union before age 18.

Child marriage is now firmly on the global development agenda, most prominently through its inclusion in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 5 which calls for the elimination of the practice by 2030. SDG 5 seeks to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Child marriage also occurs among boys as well. Eastern and Southern Africa is also home to two out of 10 countries with the highest in the world for the practice along boys.

Child marriage is most prevalent in the poorest households, among them with little or no education in the rural areas.

It robs girls of their childhood and forces them to adopt adult roles and responsibilities.

According to the Unicef report the region remains off track in reaching the SDG target of eliminating child marriage by 2030, at the current rate, 20 million more girls in the region will marry in childhood in the next decade.

Speaking during the training Unicef representative to the African Union Commission and ECA, Dr Edward Addai said the media had a critical role in the fight to eliminate the harmful practices.

“At the current rate we will not achieve the target needed to end these harmful practices. We need the media to partner with us in this fight. The fight starts with making the invisible visible. We need you as media to assist us in identifying and amplifying children who are at risk of these harmful practices and communities where these practices are being implemented,” he said.

“You also have to identify service providers, families and communities that are failing these children so that we can hold them accountable. Also help us amplify the abuse and exploitation that these children are facing as well as the effects. As media be ethical in your reporting, your reporting should serve the public interest, reporting should be in the best interest of the child respect the dignity and rights of every child, protect the identity of the child.”

In her opening remarks African Union Commission representative Ms Nena Thundu said the training sought to equip media practitioners with skills on ethical and balanced reporting on harmful practices in Africa.

She said there is growing evidence of strong interconnectivity between access to information from a human rights perspective and ending harmful practices.

“Access to information contributes to increase in knowledge and information on human rights issues for both duty bearers and rights holders. It educates communities and promotes accountability of policy holders in order to shape policies and laws as well as develop programmes to address challenges that hinder development in our continent,” she said.

Ms Thundu said there was need for media to mainstream human rights especially those related to ending harmful practices such as child marriages and female genital mutilation.

She said other stakeholders such as traditional leaders, regional leaders and community leaders as well as young women and girls also had a leading role in the fight against ending harmful practices.

Ms Thundu said harmful practices were a form of human rights violation that needed to be amplified.

She said media institutions had to come up with media reforms that promote ethical, balanced, informed, victim friendly and sensitive reporting on harmful practices.

“Effects of Covid-19 on national economics has put more girls at risk to child marriages and violence and cross-border female gender mutilation. Harmful practices affect the mental state of victims, girls education thus reducing the contribution of women and girls to the economic growth of the continent,” she said.

The training on sensitive reporting on harmful practices is being held under the African Union Commission campaign on ending child marriages and eliminating female genital mutilation.

The training was attended by media practitioners from 10 member states from Eastern and Southern Africa. The countries are currently implementing AU strategies on ending harmful practices. — @DubeMatutu