Passion behind Gyumi's struggle for girls' rights

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In her crusade to challenge the Tanzanian law, she was silenced and weighed down, but she survived and went on to receive United Nation’s first global goal awards in ending child marriage in the country and recently bagged IVLP (International Visitor Leadership Program) award for social innovation and change.

We [Msichana Initiative] were just 8 months old, and were getting the opportunity to be with the big networks here in Tanzania that are working on ending child marriage. And in August we prepared a strategic plan meeting for the Tanzania ending child marriage, tapping into our judgement focusing on harmonising efforts after the case. For instance, how are these organisations going to work together to put pressure for the change that we want it to happen. And this was important because when the government had appealed after the winning the case, we had all these organisations not just rallying behind us but were speaking with us that this is not okay, and questioning the government to justify why they appealed. We have a very clear law, it says Tanzania will end child marriage by putting a minimum age of 18, which levels the law with other laws, so if you are appealing, what are you trying to say? So it created a mobilised effort leveraging from what we had done already. We also got the opportunities to be recognised at regional and global platforms as a voice for people who are on the ground and to mobilise efforts on a global level. In the 20th AU summit, they discussed on how to accelerate efforts in ending child marriage and we were welcomed to share the best practice on what might work. And now we are part of a global movement chaired by UNICEF and UNFPA in ending child marriage. It’s an opportunity given to 9 organisations all over the world, and Msichana Initiative is part of it.

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Passion behind Gyumi's struggle for girls' rights

What you need to know:

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