36 Boshoff/Protecting the African child in a changing climate of all forms of discrimination against women and guarantee of equal opportunity and access in the sphere of education and training. This relates to the need for transformative equality, identified above, where the social values and structures underlying inequality has to be addressed in order to address the problem at hand, namely, girls not going to school. Given that some of the causes (identified above) of why girl children are leaving school are related to climate change consequences, states will in this regard have to look at the environmental impacts which hinder attendance by children. Take as an example water-sourcing duties as a reason to be taken from school, a task that is traditionally assigned to girls. This means that as part of the project of keeping girls in school, states would need to have national plans with scenario planning in place, so that the State will have a responsibility to provide people with alternatives for example better and more sustainable long-term water management and provision, possible through building of a dam, better systems of irrigation or desalination of sea water. Where projections indicate that a specific region will become so dry that it can no longer sustain human habitation there may be a need for more drastic measures such as relocating the community to another part of the country where there is water (taking into consideration the issues associated with mass migration). This is strengthened by article 15 of the African Women’s Rights Protocol which provides for a duty on states to take appropriate measures to provide women with access to clean drinking water, sources of domestic fuel, land and the means of producing nutritious food as well as (b) adequate systems of supply and storage to ensure food security. A duty to have in place such a national scenario planning strategy, together with the data collection processes that it necessitates, may be one of the consequences of the best interest of the child principle, so that the state is in a position to make informed decisions and is not caught off guard by either sudden environmental upheavals or slow onset change. A second example is early marriage entered into because the family cannot support itself. In this regard, one direct measure to be taken by the state might be to criminalise child marriages.49 While this is a laudable and praiseworthy step, it may not eradicate the problem, or may lead families to adopt other, equally abominable courses of action, such as child inappropriate labour or child trafficking, since the root cause was not addressed. Similar strategies to those suggested above may go some way to addressing the root cause of climate change here as well. In this regard there is thus an overlap between the right to education, the right to nutrition and food security, clean water, sexual and reproductive rights. States should adopt cross-cutting policies and approaches to development and climate change adaptation which take 49 The African Women’s Rights Protocol in any case in article 6 determines the minimum age for marriage at 18 years and the African Children’s Charter in article 21(2) prohibits child marriage, stating that states should promulgate legislation to stipulate the minimum age of marriage to be 18 years.