Dispatches - November
Swiss Launch Campaign Against Forced Marriage
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LAUSANNE – A month-long campaign designed to raise awareness about early and forced marriage has been launched in Lausanne on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (25 November). The campaign will inform French-speaking Swiss about the effects of early and forced marriage on the lives of women.
“Marriage is no protection against sexually transmitted infections and early motherhood,” said Siri Tellier, Director of UNFPA’s Geneva office. “In Kenya, for example, young married women have a more active sex life, use fewer condoms, and face higher risks of infection from HIV-positive partners – their husbands. So marriage does not protect these women against HIV, even on the contrary.”
All members of society must be involved for this campaign to work, according to Bertrand Piccard, UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador in Switzerland. “Men and boys must be part of the fight to eliminate violence against women and early or forced marriage,” he said. Violence against women is linked to poverty, he added. “When a girl is seen as a financial disadvantage within the family, she is married off quickly.”
Forced and early marriage is not unique to poor countries but is also a problem in poorer or immigrant pockets of wealthier countries.
“In Switzerland there are some 17,000 early or forced marriages each year,” said Jacqueline Thibault, president of the Surgir Foundation, which works to end violence against women. “Most of these are from immigrant communities, or their residency situation is unstable or precarious.”
The campaign is aimed primarily at young people and is organized by the International Foundation for Population and Development (IFPD), a Swiss-based NGO, in collaboration with UNFPA. It will be visible throughout the region on buses and in cinemas of the four main cities – Geneva, Lausanne, Fribourg and Neuchatel.
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