Child marriage won't be eliminated for 300 years Unicef warns

Unicef has released a new report on the state of child marriage across the globe. In the report, Unicef noted that while there has been a reduction in child marriage in the past ten years, we are still a long way from the goal of eliminating the practice by 2030.

The lead author of the report Claudia Cappa told The Guardian, "The good news is that child marriage has been declining all over the world. In the last 10 years, the percentage of child marriages has dropped from 23% to 19% [of all marriages]."

However, Cappa pointed out that "more than 12 million girls under 18 still getting married every year. So, if things don’t change, we’ll need around 300 more years to eliminate child marriage completely.”

UNICEF describes a child marriage as "any formal marriage or informal union between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child."

Photo: Pixabay / lubovlisitsa

In countries where marriage to a minor is legal, there is either no age limit for marriage or the age limit is under 18 years. However, even in some countries where child marriage is prohibited by law, marriage to a minor still occurs.

Photo: Pixabay / qimono

According to UNICEF, around 650 million girls and 115 million boys are in child marriages worldwide.

Photo: Pixabay / jocelinthuretphotographe

About 12 million girls are married in this way every year. According to UNICEF, boys are less affected, and are married off "five times less often than girls".

Photo: Pixabay / abeer muted

"Child marriage robs girls of their childhood and threatens their lives and health. Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school," according to UNICEF.

Photo: Unsplash/ Michael Dam

Therefore, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) called for ending the practice of child marriage by 2030.

According to UNICEF, "Some families marry off their daughters to reduce their economic burden or earn income. Others may do so because they believe it will secure their daughters’ futures or protect them." Religious and culture beliefs are also an important factor.

Photo: Unsplash / Bill Wegener

However, poverty remains the largest reasons behind many parents decision to marry-off their children when they are underage. Often they simply cannot afford to feed their child.

In the last decade, the number of marriages involving underage girls has fallen by 15 percent, according to UNICEF.

Photo: Pixabay / TheOtherKev

However, there are still several countries where child marriages are common. In some of these countries under-age marriage is legal, in other countries the practice is illegal but still occurs and is socially accepted.

Photo: Unsplash / Gladystone Fonseca

The non-governmental organization (NGO) Global Citizen states that in 2017 child marriage was most prevalent in Ethiopia, Brazil, Nigeria, Bangladesh and India.

In 2017, according to Global Citizen, there were 1,974,000 child marriages in Ethiopia, despite the legal marriage age being 18. The reason for this was the deep cultural roots of the practice of "child marriage through kidnapping or forced marriage within one's own family", i.e. among cousins, according to Global Citizen.

Photo: Unsplash / Volker Repke

In Brazil, the minimum age for marriage in 2017 was 18, but with parental consent, marriage was possible at the age of 16 - for example in the case of pregnancy. Global Citizen states that there were 2,928,000 child marriages in Brazil at that time.

Photo: Unsplash / Raphael Brasileiro

According to Global Citizen, as of 2017, Nigerian law did not specify a minimum age for marriage. This lack of legal requirement has certainly contributed to the high number of 3,306,000 child marriages.

Photo: Unsplash / Oshomah Abubakar

According to Global Citizen, there were 3,931,000 child marriages in Bangladesh in 2017, despite a legal marriage age of 18 for girls and 21 for boys. The main reasons for this were religious traditions and the poverty of the population, according to Global Citizen. Parents tried to offer their children a better life through marriage and to buy the goods necessary for their family to survive through dowries.

Photo: Unsplash / Adrien Taylor

According to Global Citizen, there were 26,610,000 child marriages in India in 2017, although they had been legally banned since 2006.

Photo: Unsplash / Charu Chaturvedi

In some of these countries, the legal situation has continued to change for the better. However, it is necessary for the changes in the law to be implemented in society.

Photo: Unsplash / shalom melaku

In 2015, the Pew Research Center, a non-governmental US polling institute, published a study on the number of child marriages worldwide.

Photo: Unsplash / Dan Dimmock

In this study, 198 countries were analyzed with regard to their legal specifications regarding underage marriages.

Photo: Pixabay / StockSnap

In 117 of the countries surveyed, marriage was legal for people under the age of 18, according to the results of the US study.

Photo: Pixabay / virandek

Among those countries where marriage to a minor was legal in 2015, were Canada and the United States.

According to the website 'Equality Now' minors can legally get married in 43 states. The website also points out that there are only 7 states where one must be 18 or older to marry: Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

Shockingly 20 states do not require a minimum age for marriage so long as there is a parental of judicial waiver.

'Equality Now' reports that between 2000-2018 almost 300,000 children were married in the United States and in most cases, it was a young girl/teen married to a much older adult man.

Canada is in a similar situation to the United States. According to a study done by McGill University and published in the McGill Reporter, "In Canada, more than 3,600 marriage certificates were issued to children, usually girls, under the age of 18 between 2000 and 2018."

Photo: Unsplash / Ioann-Mark Kuznietsov

In Canada you must be at least 16 years old to get married. Youth younger than 16 cannot get married even with parental permission.

Photo: Pixabay / qimono

Each province in Canada has slightly different rules, however, in most provinces you need to be 18 or 19 to legally marry without parental consent. In most provinces if you wish to marry between the ages of 16-17 you need parental consent or a judicial order to do so.

Photo: Pixabay / geralt

While it isn't ideal that 16 years old's can marry, it is a step forward. Prior to 2015 a child as young as 7 years of age could marry with parental consent in some provinces.