DOWA-(MaraviPost)-Malawi’s Minister of Gender, elderly and child welfare development Dr. Jean Kalirani has called for the quick formulation of by-laws to spearhead the implementation of the current Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Act.
The call comes after the country’s women parliamentary caucus has rolled out sensitization and awareness campaign on the Marriage Act after a year it was reviewed into an effective law.
With support from UN Women all 32 female Members of Parliament (MPs) have taken the law into their respective constituencies for communities to appreciate its content for better understanding.
The sensitization campaign is attracting chiefs, different political parties and religious leaders, government officials, communities, police, civil society and among others.
In an interview with The Maravi Post on Thursday at Mponera Trading Centre, Dr. Kalirani who is also the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s lawmaker for Dowa Central Constituency challenged chiefs to swiftly come up with by-laws.
Kalirani said by-laws will facilitate the implementation of the Marriage Act in its totality while accommodating different communities’ aspirations and cultural believes.
The DPP lawmaker emphasized the need for communities to know the exact content of the law in a bid to prevent early marriages in young girls as one of the core business of the Act.
“The Marriage Act alone can’t work without aspirations of communities. This is the reasons government is calling for the quick formulations of by-laws for easy implementation of the law.
“After constituencies are done with this exercise, my ministry will harmonize all by-laws into one biding document. This will be a universal document to guide communities on how best to implement the Marriage Act. We want our young girls and boys to be in school all the time.
“The new law is very clearly on marriage age which is 18. It has also given equal rights between men and women in running affairs of the families with expectation to address domestic violence,” said Kalirani.
Traditional Authority (T.A) Mponera lauded the Gender Minister for the insights considering that chiefs had no crew on how to effectively implement the law.
Chief Mponera acknowledged existing gaps among his subjects on the content of the Act lauding the sensitization campaign as an opener for better understanding.