Children marched the streets of South Sudan on World Children’s day, demanded their rights respected and child marriage put to an end.
Boys and girls asked grown-up people at all levels in the communities to step up and prevent early marriage.
In a press release to CRN, it stressed that child marriage is a grave violation leading to early pregnancies, putting the lives of both mother and the child at risk.
‘Girls and boys are left out of education when married early, affecting the rest of their lives’, part of the statement reads.
It adds that around 45 percent of girls in South Sudan are married before the age of 18, placing South Sudan as one of the countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage worldwide.
The children asked community and political leaders to speed up implementation of the National Action Plan to end Child Marriage and on all adults to amplify their outcry against this harmful practice.