5.6
Part V Measures And Interventions To Mitigate The Effects Of
Child Marriage
Mitigatory measures for the child already in marriage, especially the girl
wife/bride are embedded in the Model Law as there are girls who have born
or will continue to bear children while still children themselves. To guard
against the increased health risks and death of these children, the Model
Law obliges Member States to provide in national legislation for intervention
programmes to support child brides/wives and their families by promoting
earlier and more frequent use of family planning, HIV/AIDS and maternal
health services. It is a truism that married girls do need educational and
economic opportunities to help break the cycle of inequality, illiteracy, illness
and poverty that frequently perpetuates child marriage.
This Part is specifically targeted to children already in marriage and provides
for measures and interventions to mitigate the effects of such marriages. The
Part also goes into a little detail on measures to deal with a child who is in
need of care and protection.
The Model Law obliges Member States to provide in national legislation for
effective interventions and programmes to support child brides/wives and
their families by:
promoting earlier and more frequent use of family planning,
HIV/AIDS and maternal health services, and educational and
economic opportunities to help break the cycle of inequality,
illiteracy, illness and poverty that frequently perpetuate child
marriage;
providing comprehensive sexuality education;
providing for collection of data on the number and status of
children already in marriage, including the child’s education, access
to resources, health care, education, information and entertainment
and the socio-economic status of the family;
providing for access to health related and other data and
information relating to the child, while protecting personal data to
ensure the privacy of the child.
providing
for
reporting,
monitoring
and
evaluation
of
implementation of the law; and
providing and allowing awareness programmes on consequences of
child marriage and forbidding the use of inappropriate language
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