Women's Union actively prevents and combats child marriage

A worker from local women's union speaks about the harmful effects of early and incestuous marriage to women in Phìn Hồ Commune, Sìn Hồ District, Lai Châu Province. — Photo nhandan.vn

LAI CHÂU — Giàng Thị Kia already has two children although she has only just entered her teenage years – the most beautiful age of a young girl.

Kia’s elder child is two years old and the younger one is six months.

Due to limited customs and knowledge about marriage, Kia got married at the age of 13.

Getting married early, she had to put her studies aside and her current life with two young children is very difficult.

Kia, who lives in Chin Chu Chải Village, Nùng Nàng Commune, Tam Đường District in the northern mountainous province of Lai Châu, said that she dropped out of junior secondary school to get married.

At that time, she only knew that it had been a custom in her village for many generations.

After getting married and having children, she didn't know what to do, and she had no job, so life was very difficult.

Now, when looking at her peers who are still in school and have time to travel, she feels sorry for herself.

Lai Châu is a mountainous border province with 20 ethnic groups, who account for 85 per cent of the population.

Due to the limited education levels of some people, especially those in remote areas, child and incestuous marriages still occur.

Faced with this situation, the province has directed agencies and units, especially the Women's Union, to coordinate with local authorities to promote communication and raise awareness and encourage those who live there to gradually phase out child marriage.

Efforts

Although education on the harmful effects of child marriage has been widely spread by women's associations at all levels, because bad customs still exist, in addition to the difficulty of transportation, households’ limited economic conditions and the fact people often live separately in remote and mountainous villages, the practice still persists.

Head of the Chin Chu Chải Village Women's Association, Sùng Thị Nu, said that the association regularly gave the locals information about early marriage and incestuous marriage through village meetings.

“At first, we were determined, but the people were used to their customs, so the education results were not very good. Finally, with a lot of effort, we included it in conventions, asking families to sign commitments, so the people followed,” said Nu.

Thanks to that, child marriage in the village has decreased significantly. In 2020, the whole village had four child marriages, but last year there were only two and this year, to date, the village has not had any children getting married.

Marriage at an early age and incestuous marriages have affected the quality of the population, human resources and the poverty reduction goals.

Faced with this reality, Lai Châu Province has directed departments and sectors to closely coordinate with localities to synchronously deploy many solutions, including promoting the role of associations at all levels, creating unity in awareness and social consensus.

Giàng Thị Hoa, Deputy Chairwoman of the Tam Đường District Women's Union, proposed a solution.

“We have instructed women in communes to learn from each other and help each other implement models to prevent child marriage. For example, women in Khun Há Commune established two models and currently women in the district have also established two. From those we have instructed communes to establish at least one model and then expand it to other villages to end child marriage,” said Hoa.

“At the same time, we help women access preferential loans to conduct economic development models to reduce poverty. Then we rotate women in villages with early marriage to visit villages and communes with favourable economic conditions to witness and change their perceptions,” she said.

The women continued to spread the information to their families and other women in the village.

“Doing the work continuously, the problem of child marriage gradually decreased and they moved towards a strong effort to end it in the district,” said Hoa.

In the first nine months of this year, Lai Châu Province had nearly 200 child marriages, mainly in poor remote communes with a large population of ethnic groups. — VNS