The widow of former South African President Nelson Mandela yesterday urged the University of Dar es Salaam to come up with a methodology, which would help address child marriage in the country.
Ms Graca Machel, who visited the UDSM’s Gender Centre and Institute of Development Studies, said the institution must come up with a solution on the matter, especially in Mara Region.
She said studies show that Mara Region had the most cases of child marriages and that a special programme should be designed for it because it is deeply rooted in cultural beliefs.
Ms Machel, who has been an international advocate for social and political freedom for decades, said UDSM was in good position to research and come up with lasting solutions on the matter.
“My visit to this university is to request you to form a methodology that will help address child marriage in Mara Region and other areas in this country. I understand that you are in a good position to draw a roadmap and manage to monitor the campaign,” she said.
She added, “the institution has the capacity to give and develop the right path to address the root causes because gender issues are real development issues.”
According to Ms Machel, the programme should involve selecting some schools and conduct studies as to why girls perform poorly in class.
“Let’s do that job and come up with answers. Girls are capable and are as intelligent as boys, but there have been bad records in their academic performance,” she said.
UDSM’s Professor Bertha Koda said Tanzania has impressive policies regarding gender issues, but most of them have not been implemented accordingly.
Moreover, Dr Rose Shayo from the Institute of Development Studies said gender issues were highly linked to stereotypes. Communities believe that if a girl is not in school the only option was to get married.
0 comments:
Post a Comment