The fight against child marriages has taken another stride as the ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare, embarks on a stakeholder engagement exercise to enhance coordination among implementing partners.

The initiative which is covering Dedza, Machinga, Mchinji, Mulanje, Karonga, NkhataBay and Mangochi districts is being partly supported by Youth Net and Counselling (YONECO), Plan Malawi and other implementing partners.

Speaking in Dedza, during the exercise, Chief Gender Development Officer, Justin Hamera, highlighted that there is duplication of efforts in ending child marriages.

“An organization can go to one area and do community mobilization and another organization will go in the same area, do community mobilization and create structures instead of using the existing structures,” he said.

Hamera said this has made it impossible to document successes and challenges that will ascertain if the country is making progress in ending child marriages.

“We want to have statistics in terms of how many girls have been withdrawn from school based on the projects. We want to have figures based on reality,”Hamera added.