Child Marriage: Girls 14 and Younger At Risk

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WHAT IS CHILD MARRIAGE AND WHERE DOES IT OCCUR?
The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as anyone under the age of 18 unless adulthood is legally attained earlier under the applicable country law. Thus, with some exceptions, “child marriages” are generally understood to mean marriages taking place before age 18.^1,2 This brief focuses on the betrothal and marriage of girls ages 14 and younger, who are especially vulnerable to violations of their health and rights, and considers such marriages forced because girls this young rarely have the legal capacity or the personal agency to disobey their elders or to give or withhold their consent.

Worldwide, marriage laws and practices are highly diverse. In most developing countries, between 20 percent and 70 percent of young women marry (or start living with a partner) before age 18 (see table).^3,4   In many countries, the arranged marriage of girls at or before puberty in order to “protect their virginity” or the family’s “honor,” or to increase their “exchange value” was never widely practiced; in others, it is common among some groups. Socioeconomic factors also play a role. Parents may feel “forced” to marry their daughter early because they fear for her safety and economic security.

While some marriages of adolescents ages 15 and over also occur against their will, thus violating their rights, others are initiated by young people themselves or with their consent. Understanding child marriage requires an understanding of the causes, meanings, and consequences of these marriages in different settings, especially in reference to the degree of coercion or choice involved.⁵

EARLY MARRIAGE JEOPARDIZES GIRLS’ HEALTH
Child marriage is the major cause worldwide of pregnancies before age 15. In most of the developing world, 90 percent of first births among girls younger than 18 occur within marriage.⁶ Young brides typically become sexually active as soon as they are married, sometimes before their first menstruation.⁷ Often living in their husband’s household and community, they face intense pressures to bear children as soon as possible, with potentially disastrous results. 

• Because their bodies are not yet fully developed (bone structure, pelvis, reproductive organs), girls ages 14 and younger run a very high risk of complications in pregnancy and childbirth compared with older adolescents.³
  
• Prolonged and obstructed labor, which is common among pregnant young adolescent girls, can lead to hemorrhage, severe infection, and maternal death. This is especially true for girls who experience additional pregnancy-related complications such as eclampsia. Those who survive may suffer from obstetric fistula,
  a debilitating condition that causes chronic incontinence and results in shame and social isolation.⁸

Girls who are married young are also more vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS. For example, in Kisumu, Kenya, HIV infection rates are nearly 33 percent among married girls
ages 15 – 19, compared with 22 percent among unmarried, sexually-active girls of the same age.⁹

• Girls’ physiological vulnerability due to the small size, inelasticity, and lack of lubrication of the vagina and cervix is compounded by their exposure to frequent, unprotected, and sometimes forced sexual intercourse within marriage; lack of information about STIs, including HIV; and inability to negotiate their own protection.^9,10
  
• Throughout countries of Africa and Latin America, more than 80 percent of adolescent girls ages 15 – 19 who report having unprotected sex in the previous week are married.⁹
  
• The average age gap between young brides and the men to whom they are married reaches eight to ten years or more in some countries.³ The older the husband, the more likely it is that he has had multiple sexual partners and may be HIV-positive.^9,10

GIRLS MARRIED AT 14 OR YOUNGER EXPERIENCE DISADVANTAGES
Girls who are married at a very young age experience related educational, social, and personal disadvantages compared with those who marry later, including:^1,2,6

• greater control over the young bride by her husband and his family, including restrictions on her freedom of movement and her capacity to seek health care and family planning services;
  
• increased likelihood that she will experience domestic violence and sexual abuse;
  
• little if any schooling and little possibility of pursuing educational opportunities;
  
• limited capacity to enter the paid labor force and earn an independent income;
  
• greater personal insecurity in the face of the possibility of divorce or early widowhood;
  
• social isolation from her own family, friends, and other social networks.

THE LAWS OF SOME COUNTRIES PERMIT CHILD MARRIAGE
In 1994, the UN Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women issued a nonbinding recommendation that countries adopt a minimum age for marriage of 18 years for both sexes.¹¹

Yet the marriage laws of developing countries vary widely. The most common minimum age at which a young person who wishes to marry may do so without obtaining parental consent is 18 years. Virtually all developing countries permit earlier marriages with the consent of parents, legal guardians, or judicial or religious authorities, however, often without specifying any minimum age or requiring the consent of the underage bride or groom.¹² Notably, marriages before age 15 or 16 violate the laws setting a minimum age for a young person’s consent to sex in most countries.¹³

Exceptions to legal statutes are often made for religious laws or customary practices. For example, in Niger, the civil code prohibits the marriage of boys under 18 and girls under 15. According to observers, the code is “virtually never applied” due to the existence of two other legal systems, one judicial and the other Islamic, which allow marriage at younger ages.¹²

Even without these exceptions, laws regulating minimum age at marriage may be ignored or easily circumvented. A girl may be married in a traditional ceremony long before the union is registered with civil authorities (if it is registered at all), or the ages may be falsified in the absence of birth certificates or other documentation. 

MULTIPLE APPROACHES ARE NEEDED TO ELIMINATE CHILD MARRIAGE
Interventions to prevent or eliminate the forced marriage of girls ages 14 and younger; to help ensure a safe passage to marriage and adulthood for all girls; and to support girls who are already married include (but are by no means limited to) the following actions:^1,2,3,14

• Advocate for governments to set a minimum legal age at marriage of 18 years without the requirement of parental consent for young people who wish to marry, and at least 15 years with the free consent of both parties and the consent of parents, guardians, or judicial authorities. Safeguards must be included in the law and its implementation to ensure that both parties freely choose to marry and that “parental consent” is not used to justify customary or religious laws or practices that permit forced marriages. In those countries where the marriage of girls under age 15 is practiced, and in all places where forced marriage occurs, special legal and programmatic initiatives are warranted, such as identifying and bringing cases to court, educating customary and religious authorities, and penalizing violators.
  
• Strengthen marriage registration systems to require compulsory civil registration, age confirmation, and “free and full consent” of the bride and groom. Other government registration systems should also be developed and/or strengthened for adolescents, including provision of identification cards, birth certificates, health certifications, and proof of school enrollment.
  
• Create incentives and promote campaigns for the elimination of child marriage among community leaders and organizations, stressing the benefits to girls’ health and human rights, families, and communities. Work to dispel the myth of marriage as a safety zone for girls and women.
  
• Expand investments in girls’ education, the quality of teaching, the safety of school environments, and promote universal attendance of all girls, at least up to age 15. Eliminate school fees and provide incentives for parents to send their daughters to school.
  
• Support comprehensive sexuality education programs in schools and communities that begin early in primary school and continue through adolescence. These programs should stress human rights and gender equality, including the right to refuse marriage.
  
• Provide vocational training and financial literacy programs, both in schools and also for out-of-school girls ages 10-14, to facilitate their income-earning capacity and employment now or later. Establish safe
  girls-only spaces in schools and clubs for girls who are out of school and may already be married.
  
• Invest in the sexual and reproductive health of young adolescent girls, both married and unmarried, with a comprehensive reproductive health care that is accessible to girls of all ages, including family planning and HIV prevention services, pregnancy and delivery care, and the provision of reproductive information and education within the health system.

Each of these actions promotes the health and well-being of young adolescent girls and contributes to the elimination of child marriage. 

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to reviewers Mairo Bello, Judith Bruce, and Dina Siddiqi.

References

1. International Planned Parenthood Federation, United Nations Population Fund, and Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. 2005. Ending child marriage: a guide for global action. London: IPPF.

2. International Center for Research in Women. 2005. Too young to wed: education & action toward ending child marriage. Washington DC: ICRW.

3. Lloyd, Cynthia B., ed. 2005. Growing up global: the changing transitions to adulthood in developing countries. Washington DC: National Academies Press.

4. United Nations, Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs. 2000. World marriage patterns 2000. Wall chart. http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/worldmarriage/worldmarriagepatterns2000.pdf

5. Bunting, Annie. 2005. Stages of development: marriage of girls and teens as an international human rights issue.  Social and Legal Studies 14(2):17-38.

6. Haberland, Nicole, Eric L. Chong, and Hillary J. Bracken. 2006. A world apart: the disadvantage and social isolation of married adolescent girls. Brief based on background paper prepared for the WHO/UNFPA/Population Council Technical Consultation on Married Adolescents. New York: The Population Council.

7. Duncan, M.E. et al. 1990. First coitus before menarche and the risk of sexually transmitted disease. The Lancet 335:338-340.

8. Cook, Rebecca J., Bernard M. Dickens, and S. Syed.  2004. Obstetric fistula: the challenge to human rights. International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics  87:72-77.

9. Clark, Shelley, Judith Bruce, and Annie Dude. 2006. Protecting young women from HIV/AIDS: the case against child and adolescent marriage. International Family Planning Perspectives 32(2):79-88.

10. Clark, Shelley. 2004. Early marriage and HIV risks in Sub-Saharan Africa. Studies in Family Planning 35(3):149-160.

11. Women's Human Rights Resources. 2004. What is the accepted age of marriage in international conventions?  http://www.law-lib.utoronto/ca.Diana/age.htm.

12. Melchiorre, Angela. 2004. At what age are school children employed, married and taken to court?  2nd ed.  Copenhagen: The Right to Education Project.  http://www.right-to-education.org/content/age/index.html.

13. AVERT (formerly AIDS Education and Research Trust). 2005. Worldwide ages of consent [to sex].  West Sussex, UK: AVERT. http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm.

14. Bruce, Judith. 2007. The girls left behind: out of the box and out of reach. Presentation at "Preventing AIDS in Women Starts with Counting Girls," a Global Health Council Policy Series Event. New York: Population Council.