Child Marriage

What is the current situation?

Throughout the developing world, millions of girls are married off to virtual strangers while they are still just children.

Some are as young as six or seven years old when they are married. The girls themselves rarely have any say in the matter. Many do not even know or fully understand what is planned for them until they arrive at their husband’s home.

In families with limited resources, child marriage is often considered a way to provide for a daughter’s future. Poor families have few resources to support more healthy alternatives for girls, while economic gains through marrying off a daughter may also motivate poor parents to choose this path.

Worldwide, 100 million girls will be married before the age of 18 in the next decade alone. In countries like Niger and Bangladesh, grinding poverty and adherence to tradition results in more than three out of every four girls being married off before they turn 18 (ICRW).

What are the risks for young girls?

Child marriage is a great threat to young girls, for health and other reasons:

Child brides are often pressured to bear children themselves long before their bodies are fully developed. Combined with lack of power, lack of information, and reduced access to health services, it can be disastrous. Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s, and pregnancy is the leading cause of death worldwide for girls ages 15 to 19. Early childbearing can cause obstetric fistula (when a young mother’s vagina, bladder and/or rectum tear during childbirth) a condition that causes urine and feces leakage, often resulting in ostracism.
Adolescent childbirth is extremely dangerous for the infant, as well. Children born to young girls are far more likely to perish than are children born to older mothers.
Young brides are at higher risk for contracting HIV/AIDS. Girls are often married to significantly older men who are more likely to have contracted HIV in their lifetime. In sub-Saharan Africa, married girls have a notably greater risk of HIV infection than sexually active single girls of the same age because married girls cannot abstain from sex or insist on the use of condoms. One study in Kenya and Zambia showed a young girl’s married status increased the chances of her contracting HIV by an astounding 75 percent! (ICRW)
After marriage, young girls’ access to formal and even non-formal education is greatly limited because of domestic burdens, childbearing, and social norms that view marriage and schooling as incompatible. Removal from school is often the first thing that will happen to a child bride This is particularly tragic since primary education for girls is one of the most effective ways to fight the cycle of poverty and disease, reduce child death rates, improve nutrition, and promote democracy and development.
Marriage also vastly reduces girls’ access to resources like social support and autonomy. Young married girls have little power relative to their husbands and parents-in-law, leaving them extremely vulnerable to abuse. Girls who are married young are twice as likely to report being beaten and three times as likely to report being forced to have sex than women who marry after 18 years of age (ICRW).

What is needed?

Promoting educational and economic opportunities for girls can reduce child marriage. Educating adolescent girls has been critical in increasing the age of marriage countries such as Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand. Working with parents and community leaders to increase these opportunities has delayed marriage for girls in parts of Kenya and Zimbabwe. Child marriage can be ended, but only with a more concerted effort to ensure the public, in all countries, are aware of the terrible toll child marriage takes on girls and their future children.

Take action. Help end child marriage.