Zimbabwe: Young Kadoma artistes’ plea on child marriages
By Own Correspondent – A group of artistes under the Kadoma-based stable ‘Born-To-Shine’ have added their voices against the orgy of child marriages .
The group’s lead singer Tatenda Chisamba popularly known as Trice in showbiz spoke to this paper about the song entitled ‘No to Child Marriages’ where he said as young artistes they came up with a positive message to chastise particularly parents who marry off their daughters to fend off poverty.
“We have realized that child marriages are mainly perpetrated by greedy parents who see their daughters as the only way out of poverty.
Trice the group’s leader
“So as young artistes we usually turn a blind eye on serious issues grappling with today’s society usually we tend to sing about trivial issues but we decided to add our voice to this scourge because we have
many of our peer who have been affected one way or the other by this ill,” explained the young artiste.
The song features Trice, Donvert ‘Snippert’ Chaora, Tafadzwa Jari ‘Faffie’, Simon Jari ,Chris Yeremia and it was produced by a young upcoming Kadoma producer called I-Breeze.
A sleek video for the song was shot and has a rural setting which Trice said they chose because it is where child marriages are rife. In the video there is a scene where a father receives a beast in exchange
of his daughter.
The group says it is their passionate plea for radio stations to play out the song so that the messages is carried through to all corners of the country.
Last year, Zimstats released a report which stated that 5 000 children had left school due to child marriages.
Despite a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court outlawing child marriages last year, the government, civic organizations are grappling with coming up with ways to end child marriages.
Poverty, religion and tradition have been attributed as the major factors contributing to child marriages.
