Gambia's President Yayha Jammeh announced that
anyone marrying a girl below 18 would be jailed for up to 20 years.
In Tanzania, the high court imposed a
landmark ruling outlawing marriage under the age of 18 for boys and girls. Some 30% of underage girls are married in The
Gambia, while in Tanzania the rate is 37%.
Before the Tanzania ruling, girls as young as 14
could marry with parental consent, while it was 18 for boys.
The BBC's Tulanana Bohela in Dar es Salaam says
this is a big win for child rights groups and activists, who will now have an
easier time rescuing girls from child marriage.
Gambia's President speaking at the Eid-ul-Fitr
celebrations at the end of Ramadan, said parents and imams who perform the
ceremonies would also face prison.
"If you want to know whether what I am saying
is true or not, try it tomorrow and see," he warned.
Women's rights campaigners have welcomed the ban,
however some say that it would be better to engage with local communities to
try to change attitudes towards child marriage instead of threatening families
with prison sentences,
"I don't think locking parents up is the
answer... it could lead to a major backlash and sabotage the ban," Isatou
Jeng of the women's rights organisation Girls Agenda told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation by phone from the Gambian capital, Banjul.
In December last year, Mr Jammeh also outlawed
female genital mutilation (FGM), with a prison sentence of up to three years
for those that ignored the ban.
He said the practice had no place in Islam or in
modern society.
Three-quarters of women in the mostly Muslim
country have had the procedure, according to Unicef.
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