Marriage: For Adults Only - A WOW! e-Brief

 

OVERVIEW OF CHILD MARRIAGE

Child marriage—marriage before reaching the age of 18—continues to be an urgent problem in a number of regions of the world. Parents rarely seek to harm their daughters or condemn them to lifelong struggle, but a combination of economic and cultural realities encourage this practice.

Child marriage occurs most often among the poorest families in poor countries—which means it is also more common in rural areas than in urban ones. Sometimes when families suffer extreme poverty, parents may see the marriage of girls as the only way to lighten their economic load or to pay off family debts. Customs that promote child marriage include bride price and dowry, which in practice promote such instances as a girl given as part of an exchange of wealth between the families of brides and grooms. Girls and women’s low status and limited opportunities apart from marriage are also key factors in promoting early marriage.

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The links between child marriage and poverty are multiple and varied, but in practice the relationships are strong and the result is a cycle of poverty, health problems and lack of opportunity. Marriage almost always means the end of formal education for girls, and usually means informal education and job training is also abandoned.

Since child brides are overwhelmingly preteen and teen girls who are married to older men, the difference in status and age means that the girls are especially vulnerable to domestic violence and abuse from husbands and in-laws. At minimum, because of these differences, girls have little or no decision making power within their marriage and larger family.

Marriage also almost always means the initiation of sexual activity for girls, by force or choice, and this along with early pregnancy and birth severely affects their overall and their reproductive health. In addition to these problems, child marriage also increases incidence of HIV/AIDS in girls and young women. In fact, among 15 to 19 year olds in Kenya and Zambia who are sexually active, being married increases by 75 percent the chance they will become infected with HIV – other studies support this finding in sub-Saharan Africa (see “Get Involved and Learn More”).

In summary, child marriage harms not only the girls who suffer educationally, economically and healthwise, it harms the entire community. Instead of developing young people who could, with basic educational and income earning opportunities, be strong contributors to their families and communities, the girls lose this chance. And communities lose the valuable potential these girls offer.

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Photograph by Natalie Elwell/World Neighbors.

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World Neighbors and Prevention of Child Marriage

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A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women program @ World Neighbors

June 2007

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