Togo: organisations work with schools and communities to end child marriage

Two different community-based organisations in Togo took part in campaign activities to end child marriage, in the north and south of the country. In Togo, the legal age of marriage is 18, but with an exception which allows children aged 16 to marry 'with serious cause', with judicial and parental consent. However, one in four young Togolese women were married as children.

Centre de Développement des Enfants et des Jeunes (CDEJ Jérusalem), a local community centre and organisation focused on children and youth, ran three events in Zio Prefecture, Assomé in the south of Togo. On 20th December, more than 500 pupils from the local high school took part in the pledge to end child marriage (image right). On 21st December, two events were held at the centre itself. In the morning, more than 150 teenagers took part in the pledge (main image), and in the afternoon, a smaller workshop for 18 adults took place, where everyone took the pledge.

In the north of Togo, the NGO Aides Sanitaires Actions Sociales (AS)² which is focused on public health and social protection, held an event in Dapaong where more than 50 people took the pledge. Dapaong is the capital of Savanes province, which has the highest rate of child marriage in the country.