Michelle Lemuya Ikeny: Kenyan actress takes on child marriage in Nawi

Child marriage is far from being just a Kenyan issue – girls in sub-Saharan Africa are at the highest risk of child marriage in the world, with one in three marrying before the age of 18, according to the UN children’s agency Unicef.

As part of the UN’s sustainable development goals, 2030 was set as the deadline to completely end child marriage, however Unicef says progress will need to be “significantly accelerated” to meet this target.

The prevalence is decreasing globally – today, one in five women aged 20 to 24 years were married as children versus nearly one in four 10 years ago.

The fastest progress has been made in South Asia, where a girl’s risk of marrying in childhood has dropped by more than a third.

But a recent Unicef report stated that West and Central Africa, the region with the highest prevalence of child marriage, had made little progress over the last 25 years. At the current pace, it would take the region more 200 years to eliminate the practice.

Toby Schmutzler, one of the directors of Nawi, says everyone who worked on the film was passionate about the project, but the challenge now is to get the film seen.

“The message can be super beautiful but if no-one sees the film then no-one hears the message,” he says.

The film was screened at the UN headquarters in New York last month – and Kenya selected it for its Oscars submission, though it did not make it to last week’s shortlist.

Nonetheless the directing team is heartened to be in talks for an international release in the US, Canada, Europe, Central Africa and Australia.

The film was released in Kenya late last year, and in Nairobi had one of the longest cinema runs ever of a locally produced movie.