“We have received credible reports from families offering 20-day-old girls for a future marriage in exchange for a dowry. Human Rights Watch has conducted extensive research on child marriage and interviewed hundreds of child brides in countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Malawi, Nepal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. Human Rights Watch has also campaigned for an end to child marriage in other countries, including Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. Of these countries, only Saudi Arabia and Yemen, like Florida in the case of a pregnant child, have laws that do not specify the age at which children cannot marry. Sharia law, also known as Islamic law, prescribes the following rules regarding marriage: According to a 2008 report, literacy rates showed a strong correlation with child marriage, out of 200 respondents, 71% of parents who forced their daughters to marry, as well as 70% of girls and 50% of husbands, were illiterate. [5] As Chair of the UN Working Group on Early Marriage (which also includes UNICEF, UN Women, UNDP and UNAMA), UNFPA works closely with communities, religious leaders and youth in five provinces, conducting grassroots campaigns among a largely illiterate public and using cartoons and other relevant communication materials to discuss the risks of early marriage, including its health consequences. speak. “UNICEF will also work with religious leaders to ensure that they are not involved in the `Nekah` (marriage contract) for young girls. In Islam, marriage means the recognition of a couple`s social responsibility and an agreement to abide by the terms of the marriage contract. One of the conditions of the Islamic marriage contract requires the oral and written consent of the bride and groom, as well as the acceptance of the man`s proposal by the woman. [9] Research shows that child marriages are associated with serious harm and, in some cases, cause wherever married children live.
A 2010 study found that girls or young women in the United States who married before the age of 19 were 50 percent more likely to drop out of high school than their unmarried counterparts and only 25 percent more likely to graduate from college. Girls who arrived in the United States in their early teens before the age of 16. 31% are more likely to find themselves in poverty later in life. Forced marriage in Iraq and Afghanistan is an unfortunate commonality, mainly because of religious beliefs, but also because girls have no possibility of independence. Although there are laws in Afghanistan that make it illegal to marry people under the age of 18, they are rarely enforced. A 2017 study by UNFPA found that girls with secondary school diplomas are less likely to be married before the age of 18, but unfortunately, the latest data shows that only 44% of girls in Afghanistan enter primary school. Only half of these girls then go to secondary school. The lack of education that leads to poverty not only deprives a girl of the chance to experience growth and independence – in Afghanistan, it makes her all the more vulnerable to forced marriage. In 2009, Afghanistan passed the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which guarantees sanctions for domestic violence, abuse of women and forced child marriages, but the implementation of this law has not been thoroughly implemented as there is also resistance to the law. In 2013, the Afghan parliament passed a law preventing girls from testifying against forced marriages, and EVAW was protested by students at Kabul University, who considered it “un-Islamic.” [8] Child marriages are generally aimed at strengthening relationships with rival families and tribes in the context of business or the settlement of debts and disputes. Poor families often sell girls for large dowries of rich people and husbands are usually much older. Child marriage is often the result of extreme poverty or religious beliefs, and because of these factors, it is the highest in the Middle East.
In Iraq, one in four children lives in poverty, making them extremely vulnerable to forced marriage. When families receive cash offers in exchange for their child, they often agree to feed the rest of their family. Girls who enter into these marriages often experience abuse and rape or become pregnant; then, in some cases, they go through a divorce and end up on the street. Women over the age of 15 are also prone to abusive marriages, as 85% are unable to work and support themselves financially. According to article 40 of Afghan civil law, “marriage is a contract between a man and a woman to start a family”. [2] Article 70 sets the legal age of marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men. Article 71 (paragraph 1) confers on the father or guardian the matrimonial right of a girl before the legal age of 16, and marriages for minors under 15 years of age are under no circumstances permitted. [2] Despite the establishment of civil law, regional practices take precedence over national law and Sharia law. Due to gaps in the implementation of civil law, child marriages are still widespread. [4] [5] In Afghanistan, child marriage is associated with girls dropping out of school, falling into poverty, being at greater risk of domestic violence, and are associated with serious health risks, including death.
Child marriage is also associated with similar harms in the United States. NEW YORK/KATHMANDU/KABUL, 12 November 2021 – “I am deeply concerned by reports that child marriage is on the rise in Afghanistan. Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan has the second highest incidence of maternal mortality, and 32% of all deaths among girls aged 15 to 19 are pregnancy-related, while 47% of deaths among women aged 20-24 were also due to pregnancy complications. [8] Fistula is one of the harmful health effects caused by child marriage, and the 2011 survey by the Social Health Development Program found that of the 3,040 women surveyed, 67% were between the ages of 16 and 20 when they were diagnosed with obstetric fistula. [8] Young mothers also suffer from pregnancy-related hypertension as well as a higher risk of HIV infection. [15] The effects of child marriage on a girl`s health and well-being are harmful. Girls under the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth, according to the Women`s Health Coalition. Equally devastating is that a child born to a child bride is 60% more likely to die in the first year of life.
Girls who are forced into marriage often do not have access to health care because they show signs of physical and sexual abuse. For this reason, the risk of contracting STDs is very high. In the UNITED States, New York, Texas and Virginia have recently passed laws against child marriage. If the law is passed in Florida, it will be the first U.S. state to ban all marriages before the age of 18. Girls in Florida and around the world must be children, not wives. Florida is one of the US states with the highest rates of child marriage – between 2011 and 2015, more than 16,000 children under the age of 18 married in Florida. But this is far from the only thing that enables child marriage. Marriage under the age of 18 is legal in all 50 states, and Florida is one of 25 states where children of all ages can marry in certain circumstances.
According to 2000-2010 data from 38 states, more than 167,000 children married in those states alone during that period. UNICEF works in some of the world`s most challenging places to reach the world`s most disadvantaged children. In more than 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, to create a better world for all. Child marriage occurs in all regions of the world and the world, one in four girls marries before the age of 18 and 15 million girls under the age of 18 marry each year – one every two seconds. The vast majority of married children are girls, most of whom marry spouses older than them – in some cases, much older. Child marriage in the US is an extremely important issue as the future of tens of thousands of children in the US is threatened by child marriage. .
