LA PAZ: Bolivia’s parliament has passed legislation to ban marriages and civil unions with minors, bringing the country closer to the 13 Latin American nations that have already outlawed the practice.
A 2014 law restricted marriages to adults, but allowed an exception for people aged 16 and 17 if they had authorization from parents or guardians.
Just over 4,800 such underage unions were registered between 2014 and 2023, according to the Ombudsman’s Office of Bolivia.
The Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday passed an amendment to close the loophole.
The bill had been greenlit by the senate in April and will now be sent to the president for promulgation.
“This is not just a law, it is a promise that our teenage girls will no longer be forced to marry, leave school or take on responsibilities that do not belong to them,” said ruling party senator and bill author Virginia Velasco in a press release.
Officials who register marriages involving minors may be prosecuted and jailed for up to four years, Velasco added.
Advocacy group Save the Children cited data saying 32,300 girls in Bolivia were married before the age of 15 in 2014, the most recent data available.
Child marriages are prohibited in 13 Latin American countries, including Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and El Salvador, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
Bolivian parliament passes bill to end child marriages
https://arab.news/j47tx
Bolivian parliament passes bill to end child marriages
- The bill had been greenlit by the senate in April and will now be sent to the president for promulgation
- Officials who register marriages involving minors may be prosecuted and jailed for up to four years
Ethiopia’s prime minister accuses Eritrea of mass killings during Tigray war
- Landlocked Ethiopia says that Eritrea is arming rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport
- Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s government Tuesday for the first time acknowledged the involvement of troops from neighboring Eritrea in the war in the Tigray region that ended in 2022, accusing them of mass killings, amid reports of renewed fighting in the region.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, while addressing parliament Tuesday, accused Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopian forces of mass killings in the war, during which more than 400,000 people are estimated to have died.
Eritrean and Ethiopian troops fought against regional forces in the northern Tigray region in a war that ended in 2022 with the signing of a peace agreement.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told The Associated Press that Ahmed’s comments were “cheap and despicable lies” and did not merit a response.
Both nations have been accusing each other of provoking a potential civil war, with landlocked Ethiopia saying that Eritrea is arming and funding rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport.
“The rift did not begin with the Red Sea issue, as many people think,” Ahmed told parliamentarians. “It started in the first round of the war in Tigray, when the Eritrean army followed us into Shire and began demolishing houses, massacred our youth in Axum, looted factories in Adwa, and uprooted our factories.”
“The Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever,” he added.
Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare.
Gebremeskel said the prime minister has only recently changed his tune in his push for access to the Red Sea.
Ahmed “and his top military brass were profusely showering praises and State Medals on the Eritrea army and its senior officers. … But when he later developed the delusional malaise of ‘sovereignty access to the sea’ and an agenda of war against Eritrea, he began to sing to a different chorus,” he said.
Eritrea and Ethiopia initially made peace after Abiy came to power in 2018, with Abiy winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward reconciliation.
In June, Eritrea accused Ethiopia of having a “long-brewing war agenda” aimed at seizing its Red Sea ports. Ethiopia recently said that Eritrea was “actively preparing to wage war against it.”
Analysts say an alliance between Eritrea and regional forces in the troubled Tigray region may be forming, as fighting has been reported in recent weeks. Flights by the national carrier to the region were canceled last week over the renewed clashes.
