What is child marriage?
Child marriage involves the marriage of anyone below the age of 18. It is the marriage of a child to an adult or another child, and may be legally condoned by national laws.
These marriages are often given legal sanction because of legislative loopholes that in fact camouflage the sexual exploitation of children. And while a child cannot be expected to appreciate all the implications of marriage and give full and informed consent to it, their wishes are generally overlooked in the arrangement of such a marriage.
Are both boys and girls involved?
Child marriages are arranged in various ways and involve both boys and girls. It is more usual for girls to be married to boys and men who are older than them while boys are more commonly married to girls of a similar age.
Such marriages may be arranged between two very young children as a means of maintaining or ensuring social, economic or political ties between families.
In other cases, girls may be married to much older men who are more able to pay the dowries expected or demanded by a family. As such, girls are often the vulnerable party in child marriages.
Many children may know their marriage partner and have been raised with him or her. Others may be married to strangers.
Does marriage have to be 'forced' to violate children's rights?
Forced marriage is a marriage that is performed under duress and without the full and informed consent or free will of both parties.
Being under duress includes feeling both physical and emotional pressure. Some victims of forced marriage are tricked into going to another country by their families. Victims fall prey to forced marriage through deception, abduction, coercion, fear, and inducements.
It is sometimes difficult to define what 'forced' means, and whether a child 'consented'. It may be easy to claim a person under the age of 18 said they agreed to marriage.
However, if a person is under the age of eighteen, many believe they cannot have given their full and informed consent if their wishes were not taken into consideration throughout the marriage process. Clearly, the younger the child, the less able they are to give free and informed consent.
Why is it a problem?
Child marriage is a violation of human rights. It forces children to assume responsibilities and handle situations for which they are often physically and psychologically unprepared.
In places where child marriage is practiced, girls rarely have any say in when and whom they marry. Once married, these young girls have little power and limited autonomy. Girls are frequently much younger than their spouses, and the younger a girl's age at marriage, the greater the age difference between her and her husband.
In its overrarching recommendations, the UN study on Violence Against Children states the prohibition of violence "refers to legal reforms including implementation of laws to stop all forms of violence against children, in all settings, including all corporal punishment, harmful traditional practices, such as early and forced marriages, female genital mutilation and so-called honour crimes, sexual violence, and torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, as required by international treaties".
Early marriage can have serious harmful consequences for children, including:
· Denial of girls’ education. Once married, girls tend not to go to school, and so they lose out on the benefits of education: better health, lower fertility, and increased economic productivity. They also lose out on any form of sexuality education, which is rarely taught before secondary school.
· Health problems. These include premature pregnancies that cause higher rates of maternal and infant mortality. Most girls enter marriage with little or no information about their reproductive health, including contraception, safe motherhood, and sexually transmitted diseases. Because they cannot abstain from sex or insist on condom use, child brides are often exposed to such serious health risks as premature pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and, increasingly, HIV and AIDS.
Child brides typically become sexually active as soon as they are married, and they face enormous pressure to bear children as soon as possible. Because their bodies are not fully developed, they are at greater risk of complications in pregnancy and childbirth. These complications can result in death - in many developing countries, pregnancy is the leading cause of death for adolescent girls - or ongoing health problems, such as obstetric fistula. Fistula is a debilitating condition that causes chronic incontinence and discomfort, and often results in extreme social isolation
· Abuse - including physical, emotional and sexual. This is common in child marriages. In addition, children who refuse to marry or who choose a marriage partner against the wishes of their parents are often punished or even killed by their families in so-called ‘honour killings’.
· Separation from families and friends
· Lack of freedom to interact with peers and participate in community activities
· Involvement in bonded labour such as domestic slavery
Where does it happen?
The practice of girls marrying at a young age is most common in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. However, in the Middle East, North Africa and other parts of Asia, marriage at, or shortly after, puberty is common among some groups.
There are also parts of West and Eastern Africa and South Asia where marriages much earlier than puberty are not unusual. The marriage of girls between the ages of 16 and 18 is common in parts of Latin America and Eastern Europe.
It is hard to know the number of early marriages as so many are unregistered and unofficial.
Why does it happen?
As mentioned earlier, such marriages may be arranged between two children as a means of maintaining or ensuring social, economic or political ties between families.
Parents may consent to child marriages out of economic necessity. Marriage may be seen as a way to provide male guardianship for their daughters, protect them from sexual assault, avoid pregnancy outside marriage, extend their childbearing years or ensure obedience to the husband’s household.
What about the Convention on the Rights of the Child?
Different societies have different perceptions of childhood, but most governments have committed through the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to ensure the overall protection of children and young people aged under 18.
In particular, governments have committed to safeguarding children from all forms of abuse and exploitation, as well as upholding their rights to health and protection from harmful traditional practices, which include child marriages.
Any rationalisation of child marriage as the practice of tradition overlooks the fact that such marriages are often arranged within social milieu where the rights of children to protection as embodied in the CRC are absent.
As such, these marriages may cater to a demand for children as sexual partners in ways that are not identified by society as abuse. Overall, the argument for tradition or common law practices lends legitimacy to this sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
Nevertheless, child marriages can be seen to contravene the rights of all children to protection, development and survival as defined throughout the CRC, as well as in other instruments that include articles reinforcing the right to marry based on full and informed consent.
Where the marriage of children aged under 18 is permitted by a national legal code, without regard for whether young people have the opportunity and means to give full and informed consent, that country is violating its commitment to the Convention.