By Momasoh Marceline lum
A workshop for the restitution of deliberations at the 2nd World Platform for Girls not Brides was organized last November 27, 2018 at Feuguiff hotel in Yaounde by the Network of Girls Not Brides Cameroon.
Some 50 participants drawn from the Centre, West, Littoral, North West, South West ,South and East regions used the occasion to examine the role of traditional authorities in the fight to end child marriage and elaborated an action plan to that effect.
After decrying that each year, 12 million girls aged less than 18 years are forced into early marriages, they condemned that child’s marriage whose roots can be traced to socio-cultural practices in Africa marginalizing girls is, a violation of the right of the child in general.
In a chat with The SUN, the Coordinator of the coalition, Justine Kwachu Kumche explained that “it is a restitution workshop organized by us to pass on lessons learnt at the 2nd global meeting of Girls Not Brides which is a global partnership to end child’s marriage. We had a second meeting in June 2018 where logistics could allow only for 7 out of 20 members of our network to attend and because most of our network members could not make it to Malasia, we had to come here and share our experience and knowledge received out there with them.”
The Coordinator of Girls not Brides Cameroon specified that apart from the other members who did not travel to Malasia, the network decided to open up the workshop to prospective members as well who may soon join and propel the fight to end child’s marriage to higher heights in Cameroon.
“The selection of participants at the restitution workshop was focused on those who are already working on strategies to end child marriage. We want to enlarge our coalition and scale up efforts to end child marriage in Cameroon,” underlined Justine Kwachu Kumche.