The French Institute of Madagascar organized a great debate on Friday to discuss the issue of 3.5 million young Malagasy women marrying before the age of 18, with a million of them marrying before their 15th birthday. This is despite Madagascar having set the marriage age at 18 for both girls and boys in 2007.
Rose de Lune Rejojoarisoa, a juvenile judge and member of the committee for the reform of texts relating to children’s rights, explained that the Big Island adopted in 2015 one of the most repressive laws on the African continent, “the law relating to the fight against human trafficking”. This law represses forced marriage, with the marriage of a child constituting an aggravating circumstance. Additionally, this law punishes accomplices more severely than the parents, such as those who proposed to the child, those who incited the marriage, and those who helped to finance it.
Changing mindsets
Accomplices who now risk between 1 and 10 years in prison. Sanctions, however, are rarely applied. To move the lines, Master Olivia Rajerison, an activist for children’s rights, believes that the country must “seize what works” and “change mentalities”.
For this, one thing she believes in, “is the impact of social networks on society and this great mass awareness to be able to make sure that these parents do not think of forced marriage as an economic solution for their lives. ‘to get out of it or, quite simply, as a follow-up to traditions,” she explains. And to add, “We must now take advantage of the rise of social networks to be able to popularize, to make the texts accessible, intelligible, understandable to all because we need an educated, fulfilled population. ”
Since the pandemic, forced marriages have exploded on the island, due to the impoverishment of the population and no longer only concern the bush. In the capital, many cases have been recorded in the past two years.