The government of Burundi has given unmarried couples living together as husband and wife till the end of 2017 to legalize their marriage or face some certain degrees of punishment.
The order is part of the reform efforts of the President Pierre Nkurunziza led government of Burundi to moralize the country which has experience series of political violence in the last two years.
The spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior Terence Ntahiraja while speaking on the development blamed the country’s population challenge on illegal marriages, polygamy, bigamy and hundreds of schoolgirls getting pregnant.
President Nkurunziza who hinted that church and state-sanctioned weddings were the solution and patriotic duty however called on Burundians to show their love for each other and the country by getting married legally.
According to Ntahiraja the government has since been pressuring unwed couples across the country to tie the knot. The governor of the southeastern province of Rutana has ordered that persons living in common-law unions should be put on a special list by June 22, while the governor of the northwestern Bubanza province has demanded unspecified sanctions against aisle-dodgers.
