By Henry Nyamweya
Residents of East Pokot Sub-County have been warned against marrying off school going girls. Men aspiring to marry young girls aged as low as 12 years have been put on stiff notice if they don’t desist from such indecency act.
Residents of East Pokot Sub-County have been warned against marrying off school going girls. Men aspiring to marry young girls aged as low as 12 years have been put on stiff notice if they don’t desist from such indecency act.
“Preferred judgment will be leveled
against the perpetrators once they are caught by the long arm of the
Government.”Warned Mr. Orieny, District Officer, East Pokot.
He further reiterated that there have
been rife cases whereby parents are lured into marrying off their school girls
to men as old as 65 years.
According
to the Pokot culture, the girl child is supposed to undergo circumcision at an
early age of between 9 to 12 years. After a one month ceremony of the rite, the
girl's parents look for a man to take their girl for marriage.
The
parents do not consider the age of the man taking their girl and in most cases,
very old men whose age is the same as the girl's father marries the girl off
for 60 goats, 30 cows and 5 to 10 camels which to them is a lot of wealth that
they consider would not otherwise receive if they take their girl child to
school.
The
government and Non Governmental organizations are working tirelessly to ensure
that the girl child is protected and gets education.
House to house check - up is likely
to be conducted within the local communities to ascertain the cause of school
drop out at the beginning of the year.
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