Namibia has made steady progress in reducing early marriages as well as empowering women politically, a Sustainable Development Goals baseline report released by the Namibian Statistics Agency shows.

While highlighting challenges on the issues of women abuse, including both physical and emotional abuse in urban and rural set ups, the report places Namibia at a better level of women emancipation.

"In general, early marriages are declining in Namibia as noted in the reduction on women married by the age of 15 from 2.2 percent to 1.6 percent between the years 2000 to date," the report said.

On women in positions of power, the baseline report said as at 2018, the Namibian parliament almost reached parity with about 46.2 percent of seats in parliament being held by women, a move closer to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional target of a 50 percent representation from women.

According to the UN, girls remain the most affected, with 1-in-5 young women between the ages of 20 and 24, married before their 18th birthday, compared to 1-in-30 young men.

The agency warns that child marriage robs girls of their childhood and threatens their lives and health. Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school. They have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers, which are eventually passed down to their own children, further straining a country’s capacity to provide quality health and education services.