The Parliamentary Committee on Social and Community Affairs has called for concerted efforts towards empowering the country`s youth and eliminating early child marriages and unplanned pregnancies among young people.  

The appeal was made during an interface meeting between the committee and officials from the National Youth Council of Malawi (NYCOM) at Parliament in Lilongwe.

Speaking to YFM, vice chairperson of the committee Bernard Chitekwe said the country`s young population needs to be empowered in social and economic aspects of the lives.

“Our deliberation focused on youth empowerment in terms of social and economic where we are saying our youth have to be empowered in those areas just to make sure together we develop the country as a whole,” he said.

NYCOM chief executive officer Dingiswayo Jere said the council will submit a comprehensive blueprint on ending child marriages through engaging youth clubs.

“We have agreed some steps that we need to present to them what is it that we want, a comprehensive road network on what is that what we want to do to prevent child pregnancies, so we will be coming back to the committee to present the report,” he said.

Jere has however expressed delight over what he described as fruitful discussions with Committee on youth related issues.

“We have seen very committed and responsive committee that all the Members of Parliament they have really the plight of young in Malawi and they have committed to provide necessary support to the National Youth Council through the clubs we are working with,” he said.