Judgment No. CCZ 12/2015 53 Const. Application No. 79/14 A girl does not become an adult and therefore eligible for marriage because she has become pregnant. The effect of the protection under s 78(1) as read with s 81(1) of the Constitution, is that a girl remains a child regardless of her pregnancy status until she attains the age of 18 years. Whilst she is a child all the fundamental rights of a child protect her from being subjected to any form of marriage. The pregnant girl is entitled to parental care and schooling just as any other child is entitled. This means that the parental obligation to care for and control the girl child does not cease because of her pregnancy. Resistance to the liberation of the girl child from the shackles of child marriage and its horrific consequences based on conceptions of sex discrimination is against the best interests of the girl child served by the enforcement of the fundamental rights enshrined in ss 78(1) and 81(1) of the Constitution. Girl children are entitled to effective protection by the Court which is the upper guardian of the rights of children and whose duty it is to enforce the fundamental rights designed for their protection. The history of the struggle against child marriage sadly shows that there has been, for a long time, lack of common social consciousness on the problems of girls who became victims of early marriages. There is a difference between making a man take responsibility for the pregnancy of a girl and the maintenance of the baby once it is born and compelling a girl child to get married because she got pregnant. The issue of early pregnancy is a social problem that needs cooperation amongst all stakeholders to solve. It would, in fact, be a form of abuse of a girl child to compel her to be married because she got pregnant. That in any case cannot happen without a contravention of s 78(1) as read with s 81(1) of the Constitution. What is clear is that pregnancy can no longer be an excuse for child marriage.