GRSJ224/childmarriageandreproductiverights

Child Marriage and Reproductive Rights

Child Marriage

Child marriage is constituted as the legal or informal union involving adolescents under the age of 18 and it is more often involving a younger girl and an older boy or man. According to UNICEF, approximately 700 million women who are alive today were married when they were under the age of 18 and a third of them were married before the age of 15. It is estimated that 10 million child marriages occur every year all over the globe, but it is particularly evident in the developing world. Geographically, child marriage mostly occurs in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East with high density in the smaller rural communities. Although the economic status of a country plays a large role in the prevalence of child marriage, it is also heavily influenced by social, ethnic, cultural, and religious lines. For example, in India getting married before the age of 18 is a normative expectation for many girls as they are socialized to see no other alternative for their future.

Human Rights Violations

According to several international organizations, the practice of child marriage is a fundamental human rights violation that has implications on all aspects of the child’s life. The World Health Organization states that "not only are they denied the right to choose their own partner, they are marginalized and subject to various religious, societal, political and cultural practices that fail to honour their basic human rights." Empirically, these marriages have proved to impose immense threats to mental and physical health, disrupts the attainment of education, increases the risk of abuse or violence, and overall, limits the rights and opportunities of these children.

A Threat to Health

Reproductive and Maternal Health

Often due to geographic location or cultural lifestyle, the child within these marriages usually lacks the knowledge of safe sex and contraceptive use and/or is unable to access contraceptives. This increases the risks of contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases and will often eventually lead to pregnancy at a young age. In terms of pregnancy, complications in childbearing and delivery are the leading cause of death among girls between the ages 15-19 years old. For many low- and middle-income countries, child marriage is a deterrent to the uptake of maternal healthcare. When looking at Nepal, a country with some of the largest numbers of child marriages, ¾ of adolescent girls lack the ability to receive health care on their own, thus they depend on their husband or his family (Sekine & Carter). Research shows that child marriage decreases the chances of receiving antenatal care, postnatal care, and having skilled attendance at the delivery as well as it being facility-based. (Sekine & Carter)

Global Initiatives

Globally, most countries have passed laws that have specified the legal age of marriage to be 18 years or older. However despite these legal measures, the practice of child marriage continues to persist and without global sustainable reductions, the total number of girls married before the age of 18 will reach 1.2 billion by the year 2050. Many international development partners, including the United Nations and World Health Organization have stated their continued commitment to minimizing child marriage as well as reducing the implications it has on countries. Ending child marriage has been added as one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, an initiative that has been adopted by over 190 countries. In 2012, WHO brought forward the issue of child marriage at the annual World Health Assembly hoping to increase momentum towards research on adolescent reproductive and sexual health.