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The Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) in Tanzania has called on authorities to expedite the drafting of a bill that would harmonise laws on children's welfare. As Tanzania marked Africa's Children Day yesterday, the human rights watchdog said it was concerned that the country had 'contradicting laws' governing the welfare of children. "There is the Marriage Act of 1983, which defines a child as a person aged below 15 years. At the same time we have the Labour and Contract Acts that define a child as a person below 18 years of age," said LHRC deputy director Francis Kiwanga. "The laws need urgent amendment to comply with international standards on the rights of children and human rights." Mr Kiwanga said it was 'unfortunate' to have 'a number of laws' on one issue that contradicted each other. It would be easier to protect children under a harmonised law as in Kenya and Uganda, he said. In Tanzania children comprise 47 per cent of the country's population. Fifty per cent of children live in abject poverty, a situation that makes them vulnerable to all forms of abuse. Cases of child labour and exploitation are still very common, especially in rural areas where poverty forces many children out of school. Others, especially girls, are forced to migrate to urban areas where they get jobs as housemaids, often under harsh conditions. Worst cases of rape and forced marriages are also often reported, while in some areas girls are 'obliged' by tradition to undergo female genital mutilation, which exposes them to HIV and AIDS. "Such cases have of late been fuelled by lack of good governance by authorities, who disregard the welfare of children," Mr Kimwanga said. "Then there is also the issue of moral decay in our societies, which have seen people arrange marriages and rape young girls." A lawyer with LHRC, Mr Felista Mauya, said most prisoners today were serving sentences for acts of child abuse. "This is a telling evidence of how bad the situation is," he said. At the Russian Cultural Centre in Dar es Salaam, where people gathered to celebrate the Children's day, there were calls for family unity 'to avoid child abuses.' African Sana chairperson Ailinda Sawe said broken marriages were 'worsening the conditions of children'. She urged parents to 'build and maintain' love within the homes. Dar es Salaam deputy mayor Mwilima Ahmed, who was guest of honour at the celebrations, called on officials not to embezzle funds meant for children's welfare.