Unicef has urged The Gambia to invest in girls and enforce the law to end child marriage now. In a statement marking International Day of the Girl on October 11 under the global theme “End child marriage and invest in girls’ rights,” Unicef representative in The Gambia, Ms Nafisa Binte Shafique, said every Gambian girl deserves a childhood, not a forced marriage.
“Every girl in The Gambia deserves a childhood — the freedom to learn, to lead, and to decide her own future. Child marriage takes that freedom away,” Shafique declared.
She said the theme reflects demands raised by girls and girl-led networks worldwide.
Globally, sustained investment in girls’ education, legal reforms and social protection has averted about 68 million child marriages over the past 25 years, Unicef estimates. In The Gambia, progress is visible. More girls are in school than ever before. In this year’s senior secondary examinations, girls constituted the majority of candidates who obtained grades qualifying them to progress further. Shafique congratulated them. But she warned that the same results expose a broken system: fewer than one in ten candidates reached five credits including English and Mathematics required for university.
“Our girls are ready. Our schools must now rise to meet them,” she said.
The Children’s Act 2005 prohibits child marriage. The 2016 amendment introduced severe penalties for those who arrange, conduct or fail to report it.
A proportion of women aged 20-24 married before 18 declined from 30.4% in 2013 to 23.1% in 2019-20. Yet child marriage remains a tale of two Gambias. 17% in urban areas vs 43% in rural areas. Below 8% in Banjul vs more than 54% in Kuntaur. Almost half of women with no schooling were married as children, compared with fewer than one in ten who reached secondary or higher.
“A girl’s future should never be decided by the village she is born in,” Shafique said. “For a Gambian girl, a classroom is a place of learning and a place of protection.”
