Child marriages banned

Malawian President Peter Mutharika has signed into law a ban on child marriages, two months after lawmakers passed a Bill raising the marrying age to 18. A report on the TimesLIVE site notes that rights activists say the country has one of the world's highest rates of child marriage, with girls as young as nine being married off, even though the marriage age was previously set at 16. The new law carries a 10-year prison sentence for anyone who marries under the age of 18. Parliamentary speaker Richard Msowoya said Mutharika, who took longer than expected to endorse the law after heated debate, had now ‘assented to the bill which has become law’, according to the report. It notes a coalition of local and international NGOs had promoted the Bill, saying child marriage ‘traps girls, their families and communities into a cycle of inter-generational poverty’.