Churches vow to wed Batswana while young
Staff Writer | Monday November 25, 2013 15:41
Traditionally Batswana men wait until they on the wrong side of 30 or even 40 to wed, but religious organisations have vowed to tackle this phenomenon and get people to wed whilst they are still young.
The 10 religious organisations that include Islam, Christianity, Bahai, Hindu have come up with a document detailing how they will enforce early marriages, as well as wedding cohabiting partners. The organisations have also bound themselves to establishing youth funds to help the young couples marry.
The strategy document also says the faith based organisations shall promote law that treats cohabiting as legally binding after a specific time. In the document launched on Sunday by ZCC Bishop Barnabas Lekganyane the religious organisations also state that mass weddings will be organised in churches for the young people to start families in their youth to contain the spread of HIV.
In their new HIV & AIDS Prevention Strategy 2011-2016, the religious organisations vow to end late marriages which is blamed for the spread of HIV AIDS and concurrent multiple partners. In their strategy document launched on Sunday Faith-based Organisations also vow to advocate for the censorship of certain television and internet sites to conserve morality. The strategy document also says religious organisations shall publish statements condemning high and instantly required bogadi charges that discourage the youth from marriage.
The organisations also vow to incporporate male circumcision in sermons, teachings and boys and men's fellowship groups. They shall also promote HIV testing and counselling within their circles, as well as provision of support.
Elsewhere the strategy document also binds religious organisations to come up with a HIV/AIDS policy for their organisations, in particular addressing issues of stigma. The new HIV strategy by churches also aims to promote public appearance of leaders with spouses and mentioning of spouses in protocols.