From left: Amoko Ronnie, Agot Alier, and Wisdom Wieu are the UNICEF’s child rights advocates hosted for a talk show at Eye Radio studio on November 22, 2023 - Credit: Moses Awan/Eye Radio

UNICEF’s young advocates are calling for efforts to end girl-child marriage and allow them to pursue their education.

The Child advocates made the call on Wednesday, November 22, 2023, in commemoration of the World Children’s Day normally celebrated on 20 November each year.

The 2023 World Children’s Day Theme: For every child, every right.

The day is to promote international togetherness, and awareness among children worldwide, and improve children’s welfare.

South Sudan acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2015, which sets a minimum age of marriage of 18.

It also signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 2015, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

However, the country reportedly with deeply entrenched cultural practices and social norms linked to gender – and widely practices child marriage.

The phenomenon is said to be fueled by poverty, and girls are married off early for the family to collect dowry.

Low levels of education and lack of knowledge about the harm caused by early marriage further exacerbate the situation.

Amoko Ronnie, Unicef’s young advocate said marrying off girls at an early age will deprive them of education.

“We really need to end child marriage and to end child marriage it is not going to be like one night we wake up and we expect it to end,” said Ronnie.

“We really need the support of the government, the society, boys out there, we as the community once we join hands together we can be able to end.

“As a community, we need to remove this mentality that girls are the source of wealth, if we remove that mentality from our societies then we will be able to progress, we don’t need to send our girls out for marriage,” he said.

“The best thing we should do is we educate that girl, that girl studies and helps the family later because you know the benefit of when you educate your girl she will be empowered and when she becomes a mother she becomes an educated mother.”

Agot Alier, also UNICEF’s young advocate said girls should be supported to focus on their education, rather than marrying them off early.

“It is a collective responsibility of everybody, the government, the stakeholders and our parents, everybody needs to take part in this so that we end child marriage,” Agot said.

“The girls should be focused on education and wait for the right time because they say when you educate a girl you educate a nation,” she said.

“We really need to work on this, there are very many uprising challenges, but this is [girl child marriage] one that we should all take action on and be focused on.”

For his part, Wisdom Wieu urged parents to allow their girls to finish their education, citing their future should be respected.

“Marrying off your daughter as you say you want to respond to your wealth, you want to respond to poverty is not a solution. Marrying off your daughter at a young age, you are increasing the poverty,” said Wisdom.

“To the parents outside there, just know that marrying off girls at a young age is not actually good, you better leave your girl to study so that they may respond to your challenges in future,” he said.

“The poverty will be removed when has studied, when she is well aware of what is taking place in the world, but not going for marriage at an early age.”

World Children’s Day

World Children’s Day was first established in 1954 as Universal Children’s Day and is celebrated on 20 November each year to promote international togetherness, and awareness among children worldwide, and to improve children’s welfare.

November 20th is an important date as it is the date in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

It is also the date in 1989 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Since 1990, World Children’s Day also marks the anniversary of the date that the UN General Assembly adopted both the Declaration and the Convention on Children’s Rights.

Mothers and fathers, teachers, nurses and doctors, government leaders and civil society activists, religious and community elders, corporate moguls and media professionals, as well as young people and children themselves, can play an important part in making World Children’s Day relevant for their societies, communities and nations.

World Children’s Day offers each of us an inspirational entry point to advocate, promote and celebrate children’s rights, translating into dialogues and actions that will build a better world for children.