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23 million boys married before reaching 15, UNICEF
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NEW YORK - Using data from 82 countries, the in-depth study brings the overall number estimated child marriages to 765 million, UNICEF revealed.
“Marriage steals childhood”, said Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “Child grooms are forced to take on adult responsibilities for which they may not be ready”.
The study discovered that child marriage among boys spans sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific.
According to the data, 28 per cent of the males in the Central African Republic were married as children, ranking it first in male child marriages. At 19 per cent, Nicaragua was the second and Madagascar the third, at 13 per cent.
“Early marriage brings early fatherhood, and with it added pressure to provide for a family – cutting short education and job opportunities”, the UNICEF chief elaborated.
Notwithstanding the new information, girls remain disproportionately affected, with 1-in-5 young women between the ages of 20 and 24, married before their 18th birthday, compared to 1-in-30 young men.
While the prevalence, causes and impact of child marriage among girls have been extensively studied, little research exists on child marriage among boys. It is clear though that children most at risk come from the poorest households, live predominantly in rural areas and have little to no education.
“As we mark the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we need to remember that marrying boys and girls off while they are still children runs counter to the rights enshrined in the Convention,” reminded Ms. Fore.
“Through further research, investment and empowerment, we can end this violation”, she asserted.
In eight countries, more than 10% of boys are married before age 18.
Obama personally oversees Al-Qaeda 'kill list', media report
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World Bank to spend $5 billion in Congo
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WASHINGTON - The World Bank could provide as much as $5 billion to Democratic Republic of Congo over the next five years if its new government commits to raising more revenue, fighting corruption and opening up its economy.
The financing would be a welcome boost for Congo’s new president, Felix Tshisekedi, who has promised a bold series of costly social programs, including free primary-school education for more than 20 million children. Last month, the International Monetary Fund said it’s considering resuming lending to the country after a seven-year hiatus.
The World Bank is offering to support parts of the government’s agenda, “but not at any price,” Jean-Christophe Carret, the World Bank country director for Congo, said in an Oct. 30 interview in Kinshasa, the capital. “We will help if they are credible in their will to reform a lot of things in the economy.”
Aid from the Washington-based lender will be conditioned on government commitments to increase revenue and improve management of everything from health and education to Congo’s burgeoning mining industry, Carret said. The World Bank is also pushing the government to reduce the number of tax exemptions it gives to various businesses, he said.
Congo is the world’s largest cobalt producer and Africa’s biggest miner of copper and tin. It’s also rich in deposits of gold, oil and other natural resources.
Despite its immense mineral wealth, Congo’s 81 million people are among the poorest in the world. The nation annually ranks near the bottom of the most difficult places to do business. Some of the World Bank’s demands will focus on liberalizing the economy, particularly in opening up the supply of water, electricity and internet coverage, Carret said.
“The private sector needs to want to invest,” he said. “That is the only condition under which we can bring the population out of poverty as quickly as possible.”
A new IMF loan program would also open the door to $1.5 billion of budget support from the World Bank over three years, Carret said. The IMF halted its last program with Congo in 2012 amid worries about corruption in the mining industry.
Any new financing for Congo must first be approved by the World Bank’s board of directors, which already agreed to a $500 million program to fight childhood malnutrition in May. The bank has about $1 billion left in its most recent program that ends June 30.
Part of that money is destined for Tshisekedi’s free primary-school initiative, which should cost about $1.1 billion per year, Carret said. The Bank will contribute about $400 million a year for three years if the government takes steps to make the program sustainable.
Rail Failure
“It’s a governance program for the education sector,” Carret said. Congo’s constitution guarantees free primary education, but mismanagement and the country’s tiny budget, with only about $5 billion in revenue, have never allowed it. One quarter of Congo’s population is primary-school age.
World Bank results have been mixed in Congo, which is still recovering from years of war.(FA)
Boy, aged 12, gets university place
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ACCRA - A Ghanaian 12 year-old prodigy has won a spot at university to study public administration.
Viemens Bamfo is the youngest out of nearly 3,000 students who have just been enrolled at The University of Ghana.
He passed entrance exams with flying colours after being home-schooled by his father Robert Bamfo.
He told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that he has ambitions for Ghana's top job:
Quote Message: I want to become the President of Ghana, I want to lift high the flag of Ghana and make Ghana a truly independent country like China, the US, Britain and other countries."
He hopes to study about constitutional law, the political systems of administration, principals of management, economics and accounting.
His father, who has a degree in chemical engineering, said his son's achievement wasn't a surprise.
"I have invested time and energy giving him the necessary essentials that will help him to take up the challenges and the associated opportunities that go with it. So I wasn't shocked."
"Initially I had made my boy appreciate that he is not going to be defined by the law of averages, that he should be an outlier... That's what he should strive for, and that calls for hard work and he is prepared to do it."(FA)
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