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Child marriage

Child marriage is a marriage or similar union, formal or informal, between a child under a certain age – typically 18 years – and an adult or another child.[1] The vast majority of child marriages are between a female child and a male adult,[2][3] and are rooted in gender inequality.[2][4]

A poster warning against child marriage, in a refugee camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Although the age of majority (legal adulthood) and marriageable age are usually designated at age 18, both vary across countries, and therefore the marriageable age may be older or younger in a given country.[5] Even where the age is set at 18 years, cultural traditions may override legislation and many jurisdictions permit earlier marriage with parental consent or in special circumstances, such as teenage pregnancy.[6]

Child marriage violates the rights of children and has long-term consequences for both child brides and child grooms.[2][5] For child brides, in addition to mental health issues and lack of access to education and career opportunities,[2] these include adverse health effects as a result of early pregnancy and childbirth.[5] Effects on child grooms include being ill-prepared for certain responsibilities such as providing for the family, early fatherhood, and a lack of access to education and career opportunities.[5] Child marriage is part of the practice of child betrothal, which often includes civil cohabitation and a court-approval of the engagement[7][8] Causes of child marriages include poverty, bride price, dowries, cultural traditions, religious and social pressures, regional customs, fear of the child remaining unmarried into adulthood, illiteracy, and perceived inability of women to work for money.[4][9][10] Research indicates that comprehensive sex education can help to prevent child marriage.[11]

Child marriages have been common throughout history and continue to be widespread, particularly in developing countries such as parts of Africa,[12][13] South Asia,[14] Southeast Asia,[15][16] West Asia,[17][18] Latin America,[17] and Oceania.[19] However, even in developed countries, legal exceptions still allow child marriage including exceptions in 44 US states.[20]

The incidence of child marriage has been falling in most parts of the world. 2018 data from UNICEF showed that about 21 percent of young women worldwide (aged 20 to 24) were married as children, a 25 percent decrease from 10 years ago.[21] The countries with the highest observed rates of child marriages (below the age of 18) were Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, and Nepal, all of which had rates above 50%.[22] Niger, Chad, Bangladesh, Mali, and Ethiopia were the countries with child marriage rates greater than 20% below the age of 15, according to multiple 2003–2009 surveys.[23][24] Each year, an estimated 12 million girls globally become married under the age of 18.[25]

History

 
In 1533, 17-year-old Princess Emilia of Saxony was wed to George the Pious, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, then aged 48 years. Early marriages have been common in historical times, including in Europe.
 
Presentation of Marie Antoinette to Dauphin Louis Auguste at Versailles, before their marriage – she at age 15, he at 16 – on 16 May 1770.

Before the industrial revolution, in many parts of the world including India, China, and Eastern Europe, women tended to marry immediately after reaching puberty. These practices carried well into the 19th century in societies with largely rural populations.[26] Men tended to marry later in societies where a married couple was expected to establish a household of their own. That usually meant that men remained unmarried until they accumulated sufficient wealth to support a new home, and were married in their mature age to adolescent girls.[27]

In ancient and medieval societies, it was common for girls to be betrothed at or even before the age of puberty.[28][29] According to Mordechai A. Friedman, "arranging and contracting the marriage of a young girl were the undisputed prerogatives of her father in ancient Israel." Most girls were married before the age of 15, often at the start of their puberty.[30] In the Middle Ages, the age at marriage seems to have been around puberty throughout the Jewish world.[31]

Ruth Lamdan writes: "The numerous references to child marriage in the 16th-century Responsa literature and other sources, shows that child marriage was so common, it was virtually the norm. In this context, it is important to remember that in halakha, the term "minor" refers to a girl under twelve years and a day. A girl aged twelve and a half was already considered an adult in all respects."[32]

In Ancient Greece, early marriage and teenage motherhood for girls existed.[33] Boys were expected to marry in their teens, as well. In the Roman Empire, girls were married from age of 12 and boys from age 14.[34] In the Middle Ages, under English civil laws derived from Roman laws, marriages before the age of 16 existed. In Imperial China, child marriage was the norm.[35][36]

In contrast to other pre-modern societies – and for reasons that are subject to debate – Northwest Europe was characterized by relatively late marriages for both men and women, with both sexes commonly delaying marriage until their mid-20s or even 30s.[37][38][39] The data available for England suggest this was the case by the 14th century. The pattern was reflected in English common law, which was the first in Western Europe to establish statutory rape laws and ages of consent for marriage. In 1275, sexual relations with girls under either 12 or 14 (depending on interpretation of the sources) were criminalized; a second law was made with more severe punishments for under the age of 10 in 1576. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the British colonial administration introduced marriage age restrictions for Hindu and Muslim girls on the Indian subcontinent.[26]

A Scottish physician living in the 18th century Syria reported that locals tried to contract marriages for their children at a young age, but the marriage was not consummated until the girl "had come of age". Evidence from 19th century Palestine suggests that husbands sometimes initiated sexual relations before their wives reached puberty, but that it was a rare occurrence, condemned socially and censured by sharia courts. Writing in the 1830s, Edward William Lane observed that few Egyptian girls remained single by the age of 16, but socio-economic transformation, educational reforms and modernity brought significant changes, and by 1920 fewer than 10% of Egyptian women married before the age of 20. In 1923, Egypt's parliament set the minimum age of marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men.[40]

Religious norms and laws

Most of the religions known in history have established a minimum age for marriage in one way or another. Christian canon law forbade the marriage of a girl before the onset of puberty.[41] The Hindu Vedas, specifically the Rigveda and Atharvaveda, have verses that indicate that during the Vedic period, girls married well after attaining puberty and were of a mature age.[42] The early Dharmaśāstra also states that girls should be married after they have attained puberty[43] while some texts extend the marriageable age to before puberty.[44] In the Manusmriti, which was not implemented as law,[45] a father is considered to have wronged his daughter if he fails to marry her before puberty and if the girl is not married in less than three years after reaching puberty, she can search for the husband herself.[46]

Jewish scholars and rabbis strongly discouraged marriages before the onset of puberty,[30] but at the same time, in exceptional cases, girls ages 3 through 12 (the legal age of consent according to halakha) might be given in marriage by their fathers.[47][48] By Judaism, the minimum girl age, for marriage, was 12 years and one day, "na'arah", as mentioned in the ancient Talmud Mishnah books (compiled between 536 BCE – 70 CE, redacted in the 3rd century CE), Order Nashim Masechet Kiddushin 41 a & b.[49]

According to halakha, girls should not marry until they are 12 years and six months old, "bogeret".[50][51] Although Moses Maimonides mentions in the Talmud Mishneh Torah (compiled between 1170 and 1180 CE) that in exceptional cases girls ages 3 through 12 might be given in marriage by their fathers,[47][52] he also clarifies in verse 3:19 of the same chapter that: "Although a father has the option of consecrating his daughter to anyone he desires while she is a minor or while she is a maiden, it is not proper for him to act in this manner."[53]

According to the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia, apocryphal accounts that, at the time of her betrothal to Joseph, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was 12–14 years old.[54] However the site warn readers that it isn't reliable. To quote what the site said itself: "the apocryphal literature is full of details, the non-admittance of these works into the Canon of the Sacred Books casts a strong suspicion upon their contents" Apocryphal is spurious", "of questionable authenticity"

Historically within the Catholic Church, before the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the minimum age for a dissoluble betrothal (sponsalia de futuro) was seven years in the contractees. The minimum age for a valid marriage was puberty, or nominally 14 for males and 12 for females.[55] The 1917 Code of Canon Law raised the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females.[56] The 1983 Code of Canon Law maintained the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females.[57]: c. 1083 §1 [a]

English Ecclesiastical Law forbade the marriage of a girl before the age of puberty.[59]

There is no minimum marriage age defined in traditional Islamic law, and the legal discussion of this topic centered primarily on women's physical maturity. Classical Sunni jurisprudence allows a father to contract a marriage for his underaged daughter. The appropriate age for consummating the marriage, which could occur several years after signing the marriage contract, was to be determined by the bride, groom, and the bride's guardian since medieval jurists held that the age of fitness for intercourse was too variable for legislation.[60] This was based in part on the precedent set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, as described in the hadith collections considered to be authentic by Muslims. According to these sources, Muhammad married Aisha, his third wife, when she was about six,[b] and consummated the marriage when she was about nine.[c][d] Some modern Muslim authors and Islamic scholars, such as Ali Gomaa, who served as the Grand Mufti of Egypt, doubt the traditionally accepted narrative and believe based on other evidence that Aisha was in her late teens at the time of her marriage.[61] As a general rule, intercourse was prohibited for girls "not able to undergo it," on the grounds of potential physical harm. Disputes regarding physical maturity between the involved parties were to be resolved by a judge, potentially after examination by a female expert witness.[60] The 1917 Codification of Islamic Family Law in the Ottoman Empire distinguished between the age of competence for marriage, which was set at 18 for boys and 17 for girls, and the minimum age for marriage, set at 12 for boys and nine for girls. Marriage below the age of competence was permissible only if proof of sexual maturity was accepted in court, while marriage under the minimum age was forbidden. During the 20th century, sharia-based legislation in most countries in the Middle East followed the Ottoman precedent in defining the age of competence, while raising the minimum age to 15 or 16 for boys and 13 to 16 for girls.[62] In 2019, Saudi Arabia raised the age of marriage to 18.[63]

Although by the beginning of the 21st century, the laws of most countries have established the general minimum age for marriage at 18 years, in many countries some exceptions allow marriage before this age with the consent of the parents and/or by court decision. In some countries, a religious marriage is still recognized by the state authorities while in others, a registered civil marriage is mandatory.

Effects on each gender

Child marriage has lasting consequences on girls, from their health (mental and physical), education and social development perspectives.[2] These consequences last well beyond adolescence.[64] One of the most common causes of death for girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries was pregnancy and childbirth.[65] In Niger, which is estimated to have the highest rate of child marriage in the world, about 3 in 4 girls marry before their 18th birthday.[66][67]

Boys are sometimes married as children, almost always to a female minor. UNICEF states that "girls [are] disproportionately affected by the practice. Globally, the prevalence of child marriage among boys is just one-sixth that among girls."[4] Research on the effects of child marriage on underage boys is scant, which researchers state is likely because child marriage involving boys is less common and boys do not face the adverse health effects as a result of early pregnancy and childbirth.[5] The effects of child marriage on boys include being ill-prepared for certain responsibilities such as providing for the family, early fatherhood, and a lack of access to education and career opportunities.[5] As of September 2014, 156 million living men were married as underage boys.[68]

In its first in-depth analysis of child grooms, UNICEF revealed that an estimated 115 million boys and men around the world were married as children. Of these, 1 in 5, or 23 million, boys were married before the age of 15. According to the data, the Central African Republic has the highest prevalence of child marriage among males (28%), followed by Nicaragua (19%) and Madagascar (13%). The estimates bring the total number of child brides and child grooms to 765 million. Girls remain disproportionately affected, with 1 in 5 young women aged 20 to 24 years old married before their 18th birthday, compared to 1 in 30 young men.[69]

Causes

According to UNFPA, factors that promote and reinforce child marriage include poverty and economic survival strategies; gender inequality; sealing land or property deals or settling disputes; control over sexuality and protecting family honor; tradition and culture; and insecurity, particularly during war, famine or epidemics.[70] Other factors include family ties in which marriage is a means of consolidating powerful relations between families.[70]

Dowry and bride price

 
A traditional, formal presentation of the bride price at a Thai engagement ceremony

Providing a girl with a dowry at her marriage is an ancient practice which continues in some parts of the world, especially in the Indian subcontinent. Parents bestow property on the marriage of a daughter as a dowry, which is often an economic challenge for many families. The difficulty to save and preserve wealth for dowry was common, particularly in times of economic hardship, or persecution, or unpredictable seizure of property and savings. These difficulties pressed families to betroth their girls, irrespective of her age, as soon as they had the resources to pay the dowry. Thus, Goitein notes that European Jews would marry their girls early, once they had collected the expected amount of dowry.[71]

A bride price is the amount paid by the groom to the parents of a bride for them to consent to him marrying their daughter. In some countries, the younger the bride, the higher the bride price.[72][73] This practice creates an economic incentive where girls are sought and married early by her family to the highest bidder. Child marriages of girls is a way out of desperate economic conditions, or simply a source of income to the parents.[74][75][76] Bride price is another cause of child marriage and child trafficking.[9][10][77][78]

Bride kidnapping

 
Depiction of bride kidnapping

Bride kidnapping, also known as bridenapping,[79] marriage by abduction or marriage by capture, is a practice in which a male abducts[80] the female he wishes to marry. Bride kidnapping has been practiced around the world and throughout history. It continues to occur in countries in Central Asia, the Caucasus region, and parts of Africa, and among people as diverse as the Hmong in Southeast Asia, the Tzeltal in Mexico, and the Romani in Europe.

In most nations, bride kidnapping is considered a crime rather than a valid form of marriage. Some types of it may also be seen as falling along the continuum between forced marriage and arranged marriage. However, even when the practice is against the law, judicial enforcement remains lax in some areas. Bride kidnapping occurs in various parts of the world, but it is most common in the Caucasus and Central Asia.[81] Bride kidnapping is often a form of child marriage.[82] It may be connected to the practice of bride price, and the inability or unwillingness to pay it.[83]

Debt repayment

Money marriage refers to a marriage where a girl, usually, is married off to a man to settle debts owed by her parents.[84]

Persecution, forced migration, and slavery

Social upheavals such as wars, major military campaigns, forced religious conversion, taking natives as prisoners of war and converting them into slaves, arrest and forced migrations of people often made a suitable groom a rare commodity. Bride's families would seek out any available bachelors and marry them to their daughters before events beyond their control moved the boy away. Persecution and displacement of Roma and Jewish people in Europe, colonial campaigns to get slaves from various ethnic groups in West Africa across the Atlantic for plantations, Islamic campaigns to get Hindu slaves from India across Afghanistan's Hindu Kush as property and for work, were some of the historical events that increased the practice of child marriage before the 19th century.[71][85][86]

Among Sephardi Jewish communities, child marriages became frequent from the 10th to 13th centuries, especially in Muslim Spain.[87] This practice intensified after the Jewish community was expelled from Spain, and resettled in the Ottoman Empire. Child marriages among the Eastern Sephardic Jews continued through the 18th century in Islamic majority regions.[87][88][89]

Fear, poverty, social pressures and a sense of protection

 
English stage actress Ellen Terry was married at age 16 to George Frederic Watts who was 46 years old, a marriage her parents thought would be advantageous; later she said she was uncomfortable being a child bride. Terry died at the age of 81, in 1928.

A sense of social insecurity is a cause of child marriages across the world. For example, in Nepal, parents fear social stigma if adult daughters (past 18 years) stay at home. Others fear crimes such as rape, which not only would be traumatic but may lead to less acceptance of the girl if she becomes a victim of such a crime.[90] For example, girls may not be seen as eligible for marriage if they are not virgins.[91] In other cultures, the fear is that an unmarried girl may engage in illicit relationships,[92] or elope, causing a permanent social blemish to her siblings, or that the impoverished family may be unable to find bachelors for grown-up girls in their socioeconomic group. Such fears and social pressures have been proposed as causes that lead to child marriages. Insofar as child marriage is a social norm in practicing communities, the elimination of child marriage must come through a changing of those social norms. The mindset of the communities, and what is believed to be the proper outcome for a child bride, must be shifted to bring about a change in the prevalence of child marriage.[93]

Extreme poverty may make daughters an economic burden on the family, which may be relieved by their early marriage,[94] to the benefit of the family as well as the girl herself. Poor parents may have few alternatives they can afford for the girls in the family; they often view marriage as a means to ensure their daughter's financial security and to reduce the economic burden of a growing adult on the family.[6][95] Child marriage can also be seen as means of ensuring a girl's economic security, particularly if she lacks family members to provide for her.[96] In reviews of Jewish community history, scholars[97][98][99] claim poverty, shortage of grooms, uncertain social and economic conditions were a cause of frequent child marriages.

 
Drawings by young Syrian refugee girls in a community center in southern Lebanon promote the prevention of child marriage.

An additional factor causing child marriage is the parental belief that early marriage offers protection. Parents feel that marriage provides their daughter with a sense of protection from sexual promiscuity and safe from sexually transmitted infections.[6][73] However, in reality, young girls tend to marry older men, placing them at an increased risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection.

Protection through marriage may play a specific role in conflict settings. Families may have their young daughters marry members of an armed group or military in hopes that they will be better protected. Girls may also be taken by armed groups and forced into marriages.[96]

Religion, culture and civil law

Although the general marriageable age is 18 in the majority of countries, most jurisdictions allow for exceptions for underage youth with parental and/or judicial consent.[70] Such laws are neither limited to developing countries, nor a state's religion. In some countries, a religious marriage by itself has legal validity, while in others it does not, as civil marriage is obligatory. For Catholics incorporated into the Latin Church, the 1983 Code of Canon Law sets the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females.[57]: c. 1083 §1 [a] In 2015, Spain raised its minimum marriageable age to 18 (16 with court consent) from the previous 14.[100] In Mexico, marriage under 18 is allowed with parental consent, from age 14 for girls and age 16 for boys.[101] In Ukraine, in 2012, the Family Code was amended to equalize the marriageable age for girls and boys to 18, with courts being allowed to grant permission to marry from 16 years of age if it is established that the marriage is in the best interest of the youth.[102]

Many states in the US permit child marriages, with the court's permission. Since 2015, the minimum marriageable age throughout Canada is 16. In Canada the age of majority is set by province/territory at 18 or 19, so minors under this age have additional restrictions (i.e. parental and court consent). Under the Criminal Code, Art. 293.2 Marriage under the age of 16 years reads: "Everyone who celebrates, aids or participates in a marriage rite or ceremony knowing that one of the persons being married is under the age of 16 years is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years."[103] The Civil Marriage Act also states: "2.2 No person who is under the age of 16 years may contract marriage."[104] In the UK, marriage is allowed for 16–17 years old with parental consent in England and Wales as well as in Northern Ireland, and even without parental consent in Scotland.[105] However, a marriage of a person under 16 is void under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.[106] The United Nations Population Fund stated the following:[70]

In 2010, 158 countries reported that 18 years was the minimum legal age for marriage for women without parental consent or approval by a pertinent authority. However, in 146 countries, state or customary law allows girls younger than 18 to marry with the consent of parents or other authorities; in 52 countries, girls under age 15 can marry with parental consent. In contrast, 18 is the legal age for marriage without consent among males in 180 countries. Additionally, in 105 countries, boys can marry with the consent of a parent or a pertinent authority, and in 23 countries, boys under age 15 can marry with parental consent.

Lower legally allowed marriage age does not necessarily cause high rates of child marriages. However, there is a correlation between restrictions placed by laws and the average age of first marriage. In the United States, per 1960 Census data, 3.5% of girls married before the age of 16, while an additional 11.9% married between 16 and 18. States with lower marriage age limits saw higher percentages of child marriages.[34] This correlation between the higher age of marriage in civil law and the observed frequency of child marriages breaks down in countries with Islam as the state religion. In Islamic nations, many countries do not allow child marriage of girls under their civil code of laws. But, the state recognized Sharia religious laws and courts in all these nations have the power to override the civil code, and often do. UNICEF reports that the top eight nations in the world with the highest observed child marriage rates are Niger (75%), Chad (72%), Mali (71%), Bangladesh (64%), Guinea (63%), Central African Republic (61%), Mozambique (56%), and Nepal (51%).[22]

Marriageable age in religious sources

Judaism

Ancient Rabbis set the age of marriage for every Israelite at 18 years old; males are expected to be married by 20 years old in teenage marriage and females can stay unmarried but must be celibate.[107]

In Rabbinic Judaism, males cannot consent to marriage until they reach the age of 13 years and a day and have undergone puberty. They are considered minors until the age of twenty. The same rules apply to females, except their age is 12 years and a day. If females show no signs of puberty and males show no signs of puberty or do show impotence, they automatically become adults by age 35 and can marry.[108][109]

A large age gap between spouses, in either direction, is advised against as unwise.[110] A younger woman marrying a significantly older man however is especially problematic: marrying one's young daughter to an old man was declared as reprehensible as forcing her into prostitution.[111]

A ketannah (literally meaning "little [one]") was any girl between the age of 3 years and 12 years plus one day;[112] she was subject to her father's authority, and he could arrange a marriage for her without her agreement.[112] However, after reaching the age of maturity, she would have to agree to the marriage to be considered married.[113][114]

Catholic Church

The minimum ages of consent for marriage in the Catholic Church are 14 for girls and 16 for boys. Being underage constitutes a diriment impediment. That is, a marriage involving an underage bride or groom is canonically invalid. A Conference of Bishops may adopt a higher age for marriage, but in that case, the higher age only creates a prohibitive impediment, that is, a marriage involving a bride or groom above the Church's minimum age but below that set by the Conference is valid but illicit. Permission to marry against a civil authority's directive requires the permission of the Ordinary, which, in the case of sensible and equal laws regarding marriage age, is not usually granted. The permission by the Ordinary is also required in case of a marriage of a minor when their parents are unaware of his marriage or if their parents reasonably oppose the marriage.[115]

Islam

In classical Islamic law, suitability for marital relations is conditional on physical maturity (bulugh) and mental maturity (rushd). Classical jurists did not stipulate a minimum marriageable age because they did not believe that maturity is reached by everyone at a specific age.[116][117][104][6][118] Büchler and Schlater observe that "marriageable age according to classical Islamic law coincides with the occurrence of puberty. The notion of puberty refers to signs of physical maturity such as the emission of semen or the onset of menstruation". Traditional schools of Islamic jurisprudence (madhaahib) define the age of full legal capacity to enter marriage as follows:[119]

Male age Female age Notes
Shafi'i 15 15
Hanbali 15 15
Maliki 17 17
Hanafi 12–18 9–17 Marriageable age is whenever the person reaches puberty, which may vary person to person. Listed ages are when Hanafis presume puberty occurs in males and females.[120]
Jafari 15 9 Shia

According to Büchler and Schlater, while marriageable age is not the same as the legal majority under civil law, these age limits may correspond.[119]

The 1917 codification of Islamic family law in the Ottoman Empire distinguished between the age of competence for marriage, which was set at 18 for boys and 17 for girls, and the minimum age for marriage, which followed the traditional Hanafi ages of the legal majority of 12 for boys and 9 for girls. Marriage below the age of competence was permissible only if proof of sexual maturity was accepted in court, while marriage under the minimum age was forbidden. During the 20th century, most countries in the Middle East followed the Ottoman precedent in defining the age of competence, while raising the minimum age to 15 or 16 for boys and 13–16 for girls. Marriage below the age of competence is subject to approval by a judge and the legal guardian of the adolescent. Egypt diverged from this pattern by setting the age limits of 18 for boys and 16 for girls, without a distinction between competence for marriage and minimum age.[62] In 2020, Saudi Arabia officially banned all marriages under the age of 18.[121] The push to ban child marriage was initially opposed by senior clergy, who argued that a woman reaches adulthood at puberty.[122] However, by 2019 the Saudi Shura Council had outlawed marriages under the age of 15, and required court approval for those under 18.[123]

Politics and financial relationships

 
Child marriage in 1697 of Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, age 12 to Louis, heir apparent of France age 15. The marriage created a political alliance.

Child marriages may depend upon socio-economic status. The aristocracy in some cultures, as in the European feudal era tended to use child marriage as a method to secure political ties. Families were able to cement political and/or financial ties by having their children marry.[124] The betrothal is considered a binding contract between the families and the children. The breaking of a betrothal can have serious consequences both for the families and for the betrothed individuals themselves.

Effects on global regions

A UNFPA report stated, "For the period 2000–2011, just over one third (an estimated 34 percent) of women aged 20 to 24 years in developing regions were married or in union before their eighteenth birthday. In 2010 this was equivalent to almost 67 million women. About 12 percent of them were married or in union before age 15."[70] The prevalence of child marriage varies substantially among countries.[70] Around the world, girls from rural areas are twice as likely to marry as children as those from urban areas.[125]

Africa

RUN, a short documentary film focusing on child marriage in Nigeria.
 
Poster against child and forced marriage

According to UNICEF, Africa has the highest incidence rates of child marriage, with over 50% of girls marrying under the age of eighteen in five nations.[22] Girls in West and Central Africa have the highest risk of marrying in childhood. Niger has one of the highest rates of early marriage in sub-Saharan Africa. Among Nigerien women between the ages of twenty and twenty-four, 76% reported marrying before the age of eighteen and 28% reported marrying before the age of fifteen.[126] This UNICEF report is based on data that is derived from a small sample survey between 1995 and 2004, and the current rate is unknown given the lack of infrastructure and in some cases, regional violence.[127]

UNICEF stated in 2018 that although the number of child marriages has declined on a worldwide scale, the problem remains most severe in Africa, despite the fact that Ethiopia cut child marriage rates by a third.[128]

African countries have enacted marriageable age laws to limit marriage to a minimum age of 16 to 18, depending on the jurisdiction. In Ethiopia, Chad and Niger, the legal marriage age is 15, but local customs and religious courts have the power to allow marriages below 12 years of age.[129] Child marriages of girls in West Africa, Central Africa and Northeast Africa are widespread.[130] Additionally, poverty, religion, tradition, and conflict make the rate of child marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa very high in some regions.[73][131]

In many traditional systems, a man pays a bride price to the girl's family to marry her (comparable to the customs of dowry and dower). In many parts of Africa, this payment, in cash, cattle, or other valuables, decreases as a girl gets older. Even before a girl reaches puberty, it is common for a married girl to leave her parents to be with her husband. Many marriages are related to poverty, with parents needing the bride price of a daughter to feed, clothe, educate, and house the rest of the family. In Mali, the female: male ratio of marriage before age 18 is 72:1; in Kenya, 21:1.[73]

The various reports indicate that in many Sub-Saharan countries, there is a high incidence of marriage among girls younger than 15. Many governments have tended to overlook the particular problems resulting from child marriage, including obstetric fistulae, premature births, stillbirth, sexually transmitted diseases (including cervical cancer), and malaria.[73]

In parts of Ethiopia and Nigeria, many girls are married before the age of 15, some as young as 7[132][126] In parts of Mali, 39% of girls are married before the age of 15. In Niger and Chad, over 70% of girls are married before the age of 18.[73]

The Gambia

In 2016, during a feast ending the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh announced that child and forced marriages were banned.[133][134]

Kenya

In Kenya 23% of girls are married before age 18, including 4% by age 15.[135]

Malawi

In 2015, Malawi passed a law banning child marriage, which raises the minimum age for marriage to 18.[136] This major accomplishment came following years of effort by the Girls Empowerment Network campaign, which ultimately led to tribal and traditional leaders banning the cultural practice of child marriage.[137]

Morocco

In Morocco, child marriage is a common practice. Over 41,000 marriages every year involve child brides.[138] Before 2003, child marriages did not require a court or state's approval. In 2003, Morocco passed the family law (Moudawana) that raised the minimum age of marriage for girls from 14 to 18, with the exception that underage girls may marry with the permission of the government-recognized official/court and girl's guardian.[139][140] Over the 10 years preceding 2008, requests for child marriages have been predominantly approved by Morocco's Ministry for Social Development, and have increased (c. 29% of all marriages).[138][141] Some child marriages in Morocco are a result of Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code, a law that allows rapists to avoid punishment if they marry their underage victims.[142][143] Article 475 was amended in January 2014 after much campaigning, and rapists can legally no longer avoid sentencing by marrying their victims.[144]

Mozambique

In 2019, Mozambique's national assembly passed a law prohibiting child marriage. This law came after national movements condemning Mozambique's high rate of child marriage with 50% of girls marrying under the age of 18.[145]

Nigeria

As of 2006, 15–20% of school dropouts in Nigeria were the result of child marriage.[146] In 2013, Nigeria attempted to change Section 29, subsection 4 of its laws and thereby prohibit child marriages. Christianity and Islam are each practiced by roughly half of its population, and the country continues with personal laws from its British colonial-era laws, where child marriages are forbidden for its Christians and allowed for its Muslims.[147][148] In Nigeria, child marriage is a divisive topic and widely practiced. In northern states, predominantly Muslim, over 50% of the girls marry before the age of 15.[149]

South Africa

In South Africa, the law provides for respecting the marriage practices of traditional marriages, whereby a person might be married as young as 12 for females and 14 for males.[73] Early marriage is cited as "a barrier to continuing education for girls (and boys)". This includes absuma (arranged marriages set up between cousins at birth in local Islamic ethnic group), bride kidnapping and elopement decided on by the children.[150]

Tanzania

In 2016, the Tanzanian High Court – in a case filed by the Msichana Initiative, a lobbying group that advocates for girls' right to education – ruled in favor of protecting girls from the harms of early marriage.[134][151] It is now illegal for anyone younger than 18 to marry in Tanzania.[151]

Zimbabwe

A 2015 Human Rights Watch report stated that in Zimbabwe, one-third of women aged between 20 and 49 years old had married before reaching the age of 18.[152] In January 2016, two women who had been married as children brought a court case requesting a change in the legal age of marriage to the Constitutional Court,[153] with the result that the court declared that 18 is to be the minimum age for a legal marriage for both men and women (previously the legal age had been 16 for women and 18 for men). The law took effect immediately and was hailed by several of human rights, women's rights, medical, and legal groups as a landmark ruling for the country.[154]

Americas

Latin America

Child marriage is common in Latin America and the Caribbean island nations. About 29% of girls are married before age 18.[17] Dominican Republic, Honduras, Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti and Ecuador report some of the highest rates in the Americas,[13] while Bolivia and Guyana have shown the sharpest decline in child marriage rates as of 2012.[155] Brazil is ranked fourth in the world in terms of absolute numbers of girls married or cohabitating by age fifteen.[156]

Poverty and lack of laws mandating minimum age for marriage have been cited as reasons of child marriage in Latin America.[157][158] In an effort to combat the widespread belief among poor, rural, and indigenous communities that child marriage is a route out of poverty, some NGOs are working with communities in Latin America to shift norms and create safe spaces for adolescent girls.[156]

In Guatemala, early marriage is most common among indigenous Mayan communities.[159] In southeastern Colombia, historically the indigenous Nasa sometimes married at early ages to dissuade colonizers from coercively taking girls.[160]

Canada

Since 2015, the minimum marriageable age throughout Canada is 16. In Canada the age of majority is set by province/territory at 18 or 19, so minors under this age have additional restrictions (i.e. parental and court consent). Under the Criminal Code, Art. 293.2 Marriage under age of 16 years reads: "Everyone who celebrates, aids or participates in a marriage rite or ceremony knowing that one of the persons being married is under the age of 16 years is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years."[103] The Civil Marriage Act also states: "2.2 No person who is under the age of 16 years may contract marriage."[104]

According to a study from McGill University, from 2000 to 2018, 3,600 marriage certificates were issued to children (mostly girls) under 18 in Canada.[161]

United States

Child marriage, as defined by UNICEF, is observed in the United States. The UNICEF definition of child marriage includes couples who are formally married, or who live together as a sexually active couple in an informal union, with at least one member – usually the girl – being less than 18 years old.[4] The latter practice is more common in the United States, and it is officially called cohabitation. According to a 2010 report by the United States' National Center for Health Statistics, 2.1% of all girls in the 15–17 age group were either in a child marriage or in an informal union. In the age group of 15–19, 7.6% of all girls in the United States were formally married or in an informal union. The child marriage rates were higher for certain ethnic groups and states. In Hispanic groups, for example, 6.6% of all girls in the 15–17 age group were formally married or in an informal union, and 13% of the 15–19 age group were.[7] Over 350,000 babies are born to teenage mothers every year in the United States, and over 50,000 of these are second babies to teen mothers.[162]

Laws regarding child marriage vary in the different states of the United States. Generally, children 16 and over may marry with parental consent, with the age of 18 being the minimum in all but two states to marry without parental consent. However all states but Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have exceptions for child marriage within their laws, and although those under 16 generally require a court order in addition to parental consent,[163] when those exceptions are taken into account, 17 states have no minimum age requirement.[20]

Until 2008 the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints practiced child marriage through the concept of "spiritual marriage" as soon as it was possible for girls to bear children, as part of its polygamy practice, but laws have raised the age of legal marriage in response to criticism of the practice.[164] In 2007 church leader Warren Jeffs was convicted of being an accomplice to statutory rape of a minor due to arranging a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man.[165] In March 2008 officials of the state of Texas believed that children at the Yearning For Zion Ranch were being married to adults and were being abused.[166] The state of Texas removed all 468 children from the ranch and placed them into temporary state custody.[166] After the Austin's 3rd Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that Texas acted improperly in removing them from the YFZ Ranch, the children were returned to their parents or relatives.[167] In 2008 the Church changed its policy in the United States to no longer marry individuals younger than the local legal age.[168][169]

Between 2000 and 2015 there were at least 207,468 child marriages in the United States of which over 1,000 marriage licences were for children under 15, some as young as ten years old.[170]

In 2018, Delaware became the first state to ban child marriage without exceptions,[171] followed by New Jersey the same year.[172] In 2020, Pennsylvania became the third state to ban it.[172]

Asia

More than half of all child marriages occur in the South Asian countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.[173] There was a decrease in the rates of child marriage across the Indian subcontinent from 1991 to 2007, but the decrease was observed among young adolescent girls and not girls in their late teens. Some scholars[174] believe this age-specific reduction was linked to girls increasingly attending school until about age 15 and then marrying.

Western Asia

A 2013 report claims 53% of all married women in Afghanistan were married before age 18, and 21% of all were married before age 15. Afghanistan's official minimum age of marriage for girls is 15 with her father's permission.[175] In all 34 provinces of Afghanistan, the customary practice of ba'ad is another reason for child marriages; this custom involves village elders, jirga, settling disputes between families or unpaid debts or ruling punishment for a crime by forcing the guilty family to give their 5- to 12-year-old girls as a wife. Sometimes a girl is forced into child marriage for a crime her uncle or distant relative is alleged to have committed.[176][177] Andrew Bushell claims rate of marriage of 8- to 13-year-old girls exceeding 50% in Afghan refugee camps along the Pakistan border.[178]

Over half of Yemeni girls are married before 18, some by the age eight.[179][180] Yemen government's Sharia Legislative Committee has blocked attempts to raise marriage age to either 15 or 18, on grounds that any law setting minimum age for girls is un-Islamic. Yemeni Muslim activists argue that some girls are ready for marriage at age 9.[181][182] According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), in 1999 the minimum marriage age 15 for women was abolished; the onset of puberty, interpreted by conservatives to be at age nine, was set as a requirement for consummation of marriage.[183] In practice "Yemeni law allows girls of any age to wed, but it forbids sex with them until the indefinite time they're 'suitable for sexual intercourse'."[179] As with Africa, the marriage incidence data for Yemen in HRW report is from surveys between 1990 and 2000. Current data is difficult to obtain because of regional violence.

In April 2008, Nujood Ali, a 10-year-old girl, successfully obtained a divorce after being raped under these conditions. Her case prompted calls to raise the legal age for marriage to 18.[184] Later in 2008, the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood proposed to define the minimum age for marriage at 18 years. The law was passed in April 2009, with the age voted for as 17. But the law was dropped the next day following maneuvers by opposing parliamentarians. Negotiations to pass the legislation continue.[185] Meanwhile, Yemenis inspired by Nujood's efforts continue to push for change, with Nujood involved in at least one rally.[186] In September 2013, an 8-year-old girl died of internal bleeding and uterine rupture on her wedding night after marrying a 40-year-old man.[187]

The widespread prevalence of child marriage in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been documented by human rights groups.[188] Saudi clerics have justified the marriage of girls as young as 9, with sanction from the judiciary.[189] No laws define a minimum age of consent in Saudi Arabia, though drafts for possible laws have been created since 2011.[190] Members of the Saudi Shoura Council in 2019 approved fresh regulations for minor marriages that will outlaw the marrying of 15-year-olds and force the need for court approval for those under 18. Chairman of the Human Rights Committee at the Shoura Council, Dr. Hadi Al-Yami, said that introduced controls were based on in-depth studies presented to the body. He pointed out that the regulation, vetted by the Islamic Affairs Committee at the Shoura Council, has raised the age of marriage to 18 and prohibited it for those under 15.[123] Saudi Arabia has officially updated the law banning all marriages under the age of 18.[121]

Research by the United Nations Population Fund indicates that 28.2% of marriages in Turkey – almost one in three – involve girls under 18.[191][192]

Child marriage was also found to be prevalent among Syrian and Palestinian Syrian refugees in Lebanon, in addition to other forms of sexual and gender-based violence. Marriage was seen as a potential way to protect family honor and protect a girl from rape given how common rape was during the conflict.[193] Incidents of child marriages increased in Syria and among Syrian refugees over the course of the conflict. The proportion of Syrian refugee girls living in Jordan who were married increased from 13% in 2011 to 32% in 2014.[194] Journalists Magnus Wennman and Carina Bergfeldt documented the practice, and some of its results.[195]

Southeast Asia

Hill tribes girls are often married young. For the Karen people it is possible that two couples can arrange their children's marriage before the children are born.[196]

Indonesia

In a move to curb child marriage in Indonesia, the minimum marriage age for girls in Indonesia will be raised to 19 in 2022. Previously, under the 1974 marriage law, the marriage age for girls was 16, and there was no minimum with judicial consent.[197][198]

There has been an increase in underage marriage which has been attributed to a rise in social networking sites like Facebook. It has been reported that in areas like Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta, couples become acquainted through Facebook and continuing their relationships until girls became pregnant.[199] Under Indonesian law underage marriage is prosecuted as sexual abuse, though unregistered marriages between young girls and older men are common in rural areas.[200] In one case that caused a nationwide outcry, a wealthy Muslim cleric married a 12-year-old girl. He was prosecuted for sexually abusing a minor and sentenced to 4 years in jail.[200][201]

Among the Atjeh of Sumatra girls formerly married before puberty. The husbands, though usually older, were still unfit for sexual union.[202]

Malaysia

In June 2018, the Malaysian public learned that a 41-year-old Malaysian man had married an 11-year-old girl in Golok, a border town in southern Thailand.[203] The man, who already had two wives and six children, was said to be the imam of a surau at a village in Gua Musang, Kelantan.[204] The parents of the 11-year-old girl defended their decision to allow their daughter's marriage to the man.[205]

In response to this incident, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said that the marriage remained valid under Islam.[206] She also said in a press statement that "the Malaysian government "unequivocally" opposes child marriages and is already taking steps to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18".[207]

Following this controversy, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Mujahid Yusof Rawa proposed a blanket ban on marriages involving minors.[208][209][210][211] In response, PAS Vice President Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said that imposing a blanket ban on child marriage contravened Islamic religious teachings and, therefore, could not be accepted.[212] He also claimed it would be better to enforce existing laws to protect young children from being forced into unwanted early marriages.[213]

In July 2018 another case of a child bride was reported in Malaysia, involving a 19-year-old man from Terengganu and a 13-year-old girl from Kelantan.[214]

In August 2018, Selangor announced plans for an amendment to the Islamic Family Law (State of Selangor) Enactment 2003 which would raise the minimum age of marriage for Muslim women from 16 to 18 years.[215]

Another child marriage case was covered by the media in September 2018.[216][217]

Malaysia planned to tighten the requirements for child marriages in 2019.[218] Subsequently, any marriage with minors would have to go through a stringent approval process involving Shariah Court Department, the Home Ministry, State Religious Council and Customary Courts.

Philippines

In December 2021, President Rodrigo Duterte signed a law criminalizing child marriage, including its facilitation and solemnization, and cohabitation of an adult with a child outside wedlock.[219][220]

Before the law change, the legal age for marriage was 18 for most Filipinos, however Muslim Filipino boys were able to marry from age 15, and Muslim girls from puberty.[221]

According to UNICEF, 15% of Filipino girls were married before age 18, and 2% were married by 15.[222] mostly in the Muslim-dominated Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao region[223]

Bangladesh

Child marriage rates in Bangladesh are amongst the highest in the world.[22] Every 2 out of 3 marriages involve child marriages. According to statistics from 2005, 49% of women then between 25 and 29 were married by the age of 15 in Bangladesh.[126] According to a 2008 study, for each additional year a girl in rural Bangladesh is not married she will attend school an additional 0.22 years on average.[224] The later girls were married, the more likely they were to utilize preventive health care.[224] Married girls in the region were found to have less influence on family planning, higher rates of maternal mortality, and lower status in their husband's family than girls who married later.[224] Another study found that women who married at age 18 or older were less likely to experience IPV (intimate partner violence) than those married before age 18. It also found that girls married before age 15 were at an even higher risk for IPV.[225]

India

 
In 1900, Rana Prathap Kumari, aged 12, married Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, aged 16. Two years later, he was recognized as the Maharaja of Mysore under British India.

According to UNICEF's "State of the World's Children-2009" report, 47% of India's women aged 20–24 married before the legal age of 18, with 56% marrying before age 18 in rural areas.[226] The report also showed that 40% of the world's child marriages occur in India.[227] As with Africa, this UNICEF report is based on data that is derived from a small sample survey in 1999.[228] The latest available UNICEF report for India uses 2004–2005 household survey data, on a small sample, and other scholars[173] report lower incidence rates for India. According to Raj et al., the 2005 small sample household survey data suggests 22% of girls ever married aged 16–18, 20% of girls in India married between 13 and 16, and 2.6% married before age 13. According to 2011 nationwide census of India, the average age of marriage for women in India is 21.[229] The child marriage rates in India, according to a 2009 representative survey, dropped to 7%.[230] In its 2001 demographic report, the Census of India stated zero married girls below age 10, 1.4 million married girls out of 59.2 million girls in the age 10–14, and 11.3 million married girls out of 46.3 million girls in the age 15–19 (which includes 18–19 age group).[231] For 2011, the Census of India reports child marriage rates dropping further to 3.7% of females aged less than 18 being married.[232]

The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 was passed during the tenure of British rule on Colonial India. It forbade the marriage of a male younger than 21 or a female younger than 18 for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and most people of India. However, this law did not and currently does not apply to India's 165 million Muslim population, and only applies to India's Hindu, Christian, Jain, Sikh and other religious minorities. This link of law and religion was formalized by the British colonial rule with the Muslim personal laws codified in the Indian Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act of 1937. The age at which India's Muslim girls can legally marry, according to this Muslim Personal Law, is 9, and can be lower if her guardian (wali) decides she is sexually mature.[233][234] Over the last 25 years, All India Muslim Personal Law Board and other Muslim civil organizations have actively opposed India-wide laws and enforcement action against child marriages; they have argued that Indian Muslim families have a religious right to marry a girl aged 15 or even 12.[235] Several states of India claim specially high child marriage rates in their Muslim and tribal communities.[236][237] India, with a population of over 1.2 billion, has the world's highest total number of child marriages. It is a significant social issue. As of 2016, the situation has been legally rectified by The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006.

According to "National Plan of Action for Children 2005", published by Indian government's Department of Women and Child Development, set a goal to eliminate child marriage completely by 2010. In 2006, The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 was passed to prohibit solemnization of child marriages. This law states that men must be at least 21 years of age and women must but be at least 18 years of age to marry.

Some Muslim organizations planned to challenge the new law in the Supreme Court of India.[238] In latter years, various high courts in India – including the Gujarat High Court,[239] the Karnataka High Court[240] and the Madras High Court[241] – have ruled that the act prevails over any personal law (including Muslim personal law).

Nepal

UNICEF reported that 28.8% of marriages in Nepal were child marriages as of 2011.[242] A UNICEF discussion paper determined that 79.6 percent of Muslim girls in Nepal, 69.7 percent of girls living in hilly regions irrespective of religion, and 55.7 percent of girls living in other rural areas, are all married before the age of 15. Girls born into the highest wealth quintile marry about two years later than those from the other quintiles.[243]

Pakistan

According to a UNICEF report from 2018, around 18% of the girls in Pakistan were married before the age of 18[244][245] and 4% of the girls were married before the age of 15.[244] In the past two 2013 reports suggest that over 50% of all marriages in Pakistan involve girls less than 18 years old.[246][247]

The exact number of child marriages in Pakistan below the age of 13 is unknown, but rising according to the United Nations.[248]

Another custom in Pakistan, called swara or vani, involves village elders solving family disputes or settling unpaid debts by marrying off girls. The average marriage age of swara girls is between 5 and 9.[249][250] Similarly, the custom of watta satta has been cited[251] as a cause of child marriages in Pakistan.

According to Population Council, 35% of all females in Pakistan become mothers before they reach the age of 18, and 67% have experienced pregnancy – 69% of these have given birth – before they reach the age of 19.[252] Less than 4% of married girls below the age of 19 had some say in choosing her spouse; over 80% were married to a near or distant relative. Child marriage and early motherhood is common in Pakistan.[253]

Iran

Though the legal age of marriage in Iran is 13 years for girls and 15 for boys, there are cases of girls below the age of 10 being married.[254][full citation needed] The same source pointed out that "child marriages are more common in socially backward rural areas often afflicted with high levels of illiteracy and drug addiction". In October 2019, a prosecutor annulled the marriage of an 11-year-old girl to her adult cousin in rural Iran, and said he was indicting the mullah (officiant) and the girl's parents for an illegal underage marriage.[255] According to the Iranian Students News Agency, nearly 6,000 children are married each year in Iran.[255]

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) examining child marriage in Iran has warned of a rising number of young girls forced into marriage in Iran.[256] The Committee deplored the fact that the State party allows sexual intercourse involving girls as young as 9 lunar years and that other forms of sexual abuse of even younger children is not criminalized.[257] CRC said that Tehran must "repeal all provisions that authorize, condone or lead to child sexual abuse" and called for the age of sexual consent to be increased from nine years old to 16. The Society For Protecting The Rights of The Child said that 43,459 girls aged under 15 married in 2009. In 2010, 716 girls under the age of 10 married, up from 449 in the year prior.[256] On 8 March 2018 a member of the Tehran City Council, Shahrbanoo Amani said that there were 15,000 widows under the age of 15 in the country.[258]

Europe

General

Each European country has its own laws; in both the European Union and the Council of Europe the marriageable age falls within the jurisdiction of individual member states. The Istanbul convention, the first legally binding instrument in Europe in the field of violence against women and domestic violence,[259] only requires countries which ratify it to prohibit forced marriage (Article 37) and to ensure that forced marriages can be easily voided without further victimization (Article 32), but does not make any reference to a minimum age of marriage.

European Union

In the European Union, the general age of marriage as a right is 18 in all member states. When all exceptions are taken into account (such as judicial or parental consent), the minimum age is 16 in most countries, and in Estonia it is 15. In 6 countries marriage under 18 is completely prohibited. By contrast, in 6 countries there is no set minimum age, although all these countries require the authorization of a public authority (such as judge or social worker) for the marriage to take place.

State Minimum age Notes
Minimum age when all exceptions are taken into account General age
  Austria 16 18 16 with parental consent.[260]
  Belgium none 18 Younger than 18 and only after judicial consent (with no strict minimum age). With parental consent, serious reasons are required for a minor to obtain judicial consent for a marriage; without parental consent, serious reasons are required and the unwillingness of the parents has to constitute an abuse.[261]
  Bulgaria 16 18 The new 2009 Family Code fixes the age at 18, but allows for an exception for 16 years olds, stating that "Upon exception, in case that important reasons impose this, matrimony may be concluded by a person at the age of 16 with permission by the regional judge". It further states that both persons wanting to marry, as well as the parents/guardians of the minor, must be consulted by the judge. (Chapter 2, Article 6)[262]
  Croatia 16 18 16 with judicial consent.
  Cyprus 16 18 16 with parental consent, if there are serious reasons for the marriage.[263][264]
  Czech Republic 16 18 Article 672 of Act No. 89/2012 Coll. the Civil Code (which came into force in 2014) states that the court may, in exceptional cases, allow a marriage of a 16-year-old, if there are serious reasons for it.[265]
  Denmark 18 18 Since 2017, marriage is no longer allowed under 18.[266]
  Estonia 15 18 15 with court permission.[267][268]
  Finland 18 18 Under 18 marriages with judicial authorization were banned in 2019.[269]
  France none 18 Under 18 needs judicial authorization.[270]
  Germany 18 18 The minimum age was set at 18 in 2017.[271]
  Greece none 18 Under 18 requires court permission, which may be given if there are serious reasons for such a marriage[263][272]
  Hungary 16 18 16 with authorization from the guardianship authority[273]
  Ireland 18 18 Since 2019, marriage under 18 is banned.[274]
  Italy 16 18 16 with court consent.[275]
  Latvia 16 18 16 with court consent.[276]
  Lithuania none girls/15 boys 18 15 with court permission. Girls can marry below 15 with court permission if they are pregnant.[277]
  Luxembourg none 18 Under 18 need judicial permission. New laws of 2014 fixed the marriageable at 18 for both sexes; prior to these regulations the age was 16 for females and 18 for males. The new laws still allow both sexes to obtain judicial consent to get married under 18.[278]
  Malta 16 18 16 with parental consent.[279]
  Netherlands 18 18 Exceptions were removed by a change in the law in 2015.[280]
  Poland 16 girls/18 boys 18 16 for girls with court consent.[281]
  Portugal 16 18 16 with parental consent.[282]
  Romania 16 18 16, if there are valid reasons, with both judicial and parental permission, as well as medical approval.[283]
  Slovakia 16 18 16 with court consent, with a serious reason such as pregnancy.[citation needed]
  Slovenia none 18 Under 18 may be approved by the Social Work Centre if there are "well founded reasons" arising upon the investigation of the situation of the minor. (Art 23, 24 of the Law on Marriage and Family Relations).[284]
  Spain 16 18 16 with court consent.
  Sweden 18 18 Not possible to marry under the age of 18 for Swedish citizens since 1 July 2014.[285] Authorities take a different approach to individuals who were already married when the arrive in Sweden, as during the European migrant crisis, the Swedish Migration Agency identified 132 married children, of which 65 were in Malmö.[286]

Scandinavia

In April 2016, Reuters reported "Child brides sometimes tolerated in Nordic asylum centers despite bans". For example, at least 70 girls under 18 were living as married couples in Sweden; in Norway, "some" under 16 lived "with their partners". In Denmark, it was determined there were "dozens of cases of girls living with older men", prompting Minister Inger Stojberg to state she would "stop housing child brides in asylum centres".[287]

Marriage under 18 was completely banned in Sweden in 2014, in Denmark in 2017,[266] and in Finland in 2019.[288]

Balkans/Eastern Europe

In these areas, child and forced marriages are associated with the Roma community and with some rural populations. However, such marriages are illegal in most of the countries from that area. In recent years, many of those countries have taken steps in order to curb these practices, including equalizing the marriageable age of both sexes (e.g. Romania in 2007, Ukraine in 2012). Therefore, most of those 'marriages' are informal unions (without legal recognition) and often arranged from very young ages. Such practices are common in Serbia,[289] Bulgaria and Romania[290][291] (in these countries the marriageable age is 18, and can only be lowered to 16 in special circumstances with judicial approval[292][293][294]). A 2003 case involving the daughter of an informal 'gypsy king' of the area has made international news.[295]

Belgium

The Washington Post reported in April 2016 that "17 child brides" arrived in Belgium in 2015 and a further 7 so far in 2016. The same report added that "Between 2010 and 2013, the police registered at least 56 complaints about a forced marriage."[296]

Germany

In 2016 there were 1475 underage foreigners were registered in Germany, of which 1100 were girls. Syrians represented 664, Afghans 157 and Iraqis 100. In July 2016, 361 foreign children under 14 were registered as married.[297]

Netherlands

The Dutch government's National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children wrote that "between September 2015 and January 2016 around 60 child brides entered the Netherlands".[298] At least one was 14 years old.[299][300] The Washington Post reported that asylum centres in the Netherlands were "housing 20 child brides between ages 13 and 15" in 2015.[301]

Russia

The common marriageable age established by the Family Code of Russia is 18 years old. Marriages of persons at age from 16 to 18 years allowed only with good reasons and by local municipal authority permission. Marriage before 16 years old may be allowed by federal subject of Russia law as an exception just in special circumstances.[302]

By 2016, a minimum age for marriage in special circumstances had been established at 14 years (in Adygea,[303] Kaluga Oblast,[304] Magadan Oblast,[305] Moscow Oblast,[306] Nizhny Novgorod Oblast,[307] Novgorod Oblast,[308] Oryol Oblast,[309] Sakhalin Oblast,[310] Tambov Oblast,[311] Tatarstan,[312] Vologda Oblast[313]) or to 15 years (in Murmansk Oblast[314] and Ryazan Oblast[315]). Others subjects of Russia also can have marriageable age laws.

Abatement of marriageable age is an ultimate measure acceptable in cases of life threat, pregnancy and childbirth.[303][314]

United Kingdom

The marriageable age in both England and Wales is 18 with no exemptions since 1 May 2022 (16 with consent of both parents or guardians, plus also a magistrate approval required within Northern Ireland only),[316][317] although in Scotland[318] no parental consent is required over 16.[319] Scotland and Andorra are the only European jurisdictions where 16 year-olds can marry as a right (i.e. without parental or court approval); see Marriageable age § Europe.

In the UK girls as young as 12 have been smuggled in to be brides of men in the Muslim community, according to a 2004 report in The Guardian. Girls trying to escape this child marriage can face death because this breaks the honor code of her husband and both families.[320]

As with the United States, underage cohabitation is observed in the United Kingdom. According to a 2005 study, 4.1% of all girls in the 15–19 age group in the UK were cohabiting (living in an informal union), while 8.9% of all girls in that age group admitted to having been in a cohabitation relation (child marriage per UNICEF definition[4]), before the age of 18. Over 4% of all underage girls in the UK were teenage mothers.[8]

In July 2014, the United Kingdom hosted its first global Girl Summit; the goal of the Summit was to increase efforts to end child, early, and forced marriage and female genital mutilation within a generation.[321]

Oceania

The Marquesas Islands have been noted for their sexual culture. Many sexual activities seen as taboo in Western cultures are viewed appropriate by the native culture. One of these differences is that children are introduced and educated to sex at a very young age. Contact with Western societies has changed many of these customs, so research into their pre-Western social history has to be done by reading antique writings. Children slept in the same room as their parents and were able to witness their parents while they had sex. Intercourse simulation became real penetration as soon as boys were physically able. Adults found simulation of sex by children to be funny. As children approached 11 attitudes shifted toward girls.[clarification needed] When a child reaches adulthood, they are educated on sexual techniques by a much older adult.

Yuri Lisyansky in his memoirs[322] reports that:

The next day, as soon as it was light, we were surrounded by a still greater multitude of these people. There were now a hundred females at least; and they practised all the arts of lewd expression and gesture, to gain admission on board. It was with difficulty I could get my crew to obey the orders I had given on this subject. Amongst these females were some not more than ten years of age. But youth, it seems, is here no test of innocence; these infants, as I may call them, rivalled their mothers in the wantonness of their motions and the arts of allurement.

Adam Johann von Krusenstern in his book[323] about the same expedition as Yuri's, reports that a father brought a 10- to 12-year-old girl on his ship, and she had sex with the crew. According to the book[324] of Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu and Étienne Marchand, eight-year-old girls had sex and other unnatural acts in public.[325][326][327][328][329]

Consequences

 
Birth rates per 1,000 women aged 15–19 years, worldwide.

Child marriage has lasting consequences on girls that last well beyond adolescence.[64][330] Women married in their teens or earlier struggle with the health effects of pregnancy at a young age and often with little spacing between children.[91] Early marriages followed by teen pregnancy also significantly increase birth complications and social isolation. In poor countries, early pregnancy limits or can even eliminate a woman's education options, affecting her economic independence. Girls in child marriages are more likely to suffer from domestic violence, child sexual abuse, and marital rape.[64][331]

Health

Child marriage threatens the health and life of girls.[332] Complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the main cause of death among adolescent girls below age 19 in developing countries. Girls aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely to die in childbirth as fully-grown women in their 20s, and girls under the age of 15 are five to seven times more likely to die during childbirth.[73] These consequences are due largely to girls' physical immaturity wherefore the pelvis and birth canal are not fully developed. Teen pregnancy, particularly below age 15, increases risk of developing obstetric fistula, since their smaller pelvises make them prone to obstructed labor.[73] Girls who give birth before the age of 15 have an 88% risk of developing fistula.[73] and those between 18 and 15 have a 25% chance. Fistula leaves its victims with urine or fecal incontinence that causes lifelong complications with infection and pain.[333] Unless surgically repaired, obstetric fistulas can cause years of permanent disability, shame to mothers, and can result in being shunned by the community.[6][334] Married girls also have a higher risk of sexually transmitted infections, cervical cancer, and malaria than non-married peers or girls who marry in their 20s.[73]

Child marriage also threatens the lives of offspring. Mothers under the age of 18 years have 35 to 55% increased risk of delivering pre-term or having a low birth weight baby than a mother who is 19 or 20 years old. In addition, infant mortality rates are 60% higher when the mother is under 18 years old. Infants born to child mothers tend to have weaker immune systems and face a heightened risk of malnutrition.[6]

Prevalence of child marriage may also be associated with higher rates of population growth, more cases of children left orphaned, and the accelerated spread of disease which for many translate into prolonged poverty.[224]

Illiteracy and poverty

Child marriage often ends a girl's education, particularly in impoverished countries where child marriages are common.[335] In addition, uneducated girls are more at risk for child marriage. Girls who have only a primary education are twice as likely to marry before age 18 than those with a secondary or higher education, and girls with no education are three times more likely to marry before age 18 than those with a secondary education.[70] Early marriage impedes a young girl's ability to continue with her education as most drop out of school following marriage[336] to focus their attention on domestic duties and having or raising children.[337] Girls may be taken out of school years before they are married due to family or community beliefs that allocating resources for girls' education is unnecessary given that her primary roles will be that of wife and mother.[96] Without education, girls and adult women have fewer opportunities to earn an income and financially provide for themselves and their children. This makes girls more vulnerable to persistent poverty if their spouses die, abandon them, or divorce them.[64] Given that girls in child marriages are often significantly younger than their husbands, they become widowed earlier in life and may face associated economic and social challenges for a greater portion of their life than women who marry later.[96]

Domestic violence

Married teenage girls with low levels of education suffer greater risk of social isolation and domestic violence than more educated women who marry as adults.[73][338] Following marriage, girls frequently relocate to their husband's home and take on the domestic role of being a wife, which often involves relocating to another village or area. This transition may result in a young girl dropping out of school, moving away from her family and friends, and a loss of the social support that she once had.[6] A husband's family may also have higher expectations for the girl's submissiveness to her husband and his family because of her youth.[91] This sense of isolation from a support system can have severe mental health implications including depression.

Large age gaps between the child and her spouse makes her more vulnerable to domestic violence and marital rape.[339] Girls who marry as children face severe and life-threatening marital violence at higher rates.[340] Husbands in child marriages are often more than ten years older than their wives. This can increase the power and control a husband has over his wife and contribute to prevalence of spousal violence.[96] Early marriage places young girls in a vulnerable situation of being completely dependent on her husband. Domestic and sexual violence from their husbands has lifelong, devastating mental health consequences for young girls because they are at a formative stage of psychological development.[64] These mental health consequences of spousal violence can include depression and suicidal thoughts.[91] Child brides, particularly in situations such as vani, also face social isolation, emotional abuse and discrimination in the homes of their husbands and in-laws.

Women's rights

The United Nations, through a series of conventions has declared child marriage a violation of human rights. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination of Women ('CEDAW'), the Committee on the Rights of the Child ('CRC'), and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights form the international standard against child marriage.[70] Child marriages impact violates a range of women's interconnected rights such as equality on grounds of sex and age, to receive the highest attainable standard of health, to be free from slavery, access to education, freedom of movement, freedom from violence, reproductive rights, and the right to consensual marriage.[64][341][342] The consequence of these violations impact woman, her children and the broader society.[how?]

Development

High rates of child marriage negatively impact countries' economic development because of early marriages' impact on girls' education and labor market participation.[336] Some researchers and activists note that high rates of child marriage prevent significant progress toward each of the eight Millennium Development Goals and global efforts to reduce poverty due to its effects on educational attainment, economic and political participation, and health.[336]

A UNICEF Nepal issued report noted that child marriage impacts Nepal's development due to loss of productivity, poverty, and health effects. Using Nepal Multi-Indicator Survey data, its researchers estimate that all girls delaying marriage until age 20 and after would increase cash flow among Nepali women in an amount equal to 3.87% of the country's GDP.[242] Their estimates considered decreased education and employment among girls in child marriages in addition to low rates of education and high rates of poverty among children from child marriages.

International initiatives to prevent child marriage

In December 2011 a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/66/170) designated 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child.[343] On 11 October 2012 the first International Day of the Girl Child was held, the theme of which was ending child marriage.[343]

In 2013 the first United Nations Human Rights Council resolution against child, early, and forced marriages was adopted; it recognizes child marriage as a human rights violation and pledges to eliminate the practice as part of the U.N.'s post-2015 global development agenda.[344][345][346]

In 2014 the UN's Commission on the Status of Women issued a document in which they agreed, among other things, to eliminate child marriage.[347]

The World Health Organization recommends increased educational attainment among girls, increased enforcement structures for existing minimum marriage age laws, and informing parents in practicing communities of the risks associated as primary methods to prevent child marriages.[348]

Programs to prevent child marriage have taken several different approaches. Various initiatives have aimed to empower young girls, educate parents on the associated risks, change community perceptions, support girls' education, and provide economic opportunities for girls and their families through means other than marriage. A survey of a variety of prevention programs found that initiatives were most effect when they combined efforts to address financial constraints, education, and limited employment of women.[349]

Girls in families participating in an unconditional cash transfer program in Malawi aimed at incentivizing girls' education married and had children later than their peers who had not participated in the program. The program's effects on rates of child marriage were greater for unconditional cast transfer programs than those with conditions. Evaluators believe this demonstrated that the economic needs of the family heavily influenced the appeal of child marriage in this community. Therefore, reducing financial pressures on the family decreased the economic motivations to marry daughters off at a young age.[349]

The Haryana state government in India operated a program in which poor families were given a financial incentive if they kept their daughters in school and unmarried until age 18. Girls in families who were eligible for the program were less likely to be married before age 18 than their peers.[349]

A similar program was operated in 2004 by the Population Council and the regional government in Ethiopia's rural Amhara Region. Families received cash if their daughters remained in school and unmarried during the two years of the program. They also instituted mentorship programs, livelihood training, community conversations about girls' education and child marriage, and gave school supplies for girls. After the two-year program, girls in families eligible for the program were three times more likely to be in school and one tenth as likely to be married compared to their peers.[349]

In the other free program the Global Campaign for the Prevention of Child Marriage (GCPCM) has been launched in March 2019, and the primary goal of this Campaign is raising awareness and illuminating people's minds to address child marriage in the world.[350][351]

Other programs have addressed child marriage less directly through a variety of programming related to girls' empowerment, education, sexual and reproductive health, financial literacy, life skills, communication skills, and community mobilization.[352]

In 2018, UN Women announced that Jaha Dukureh would serve as Goodwill Ambassador in Africa to help organize to prevent child marriage.[353]

Tipping point analysis

Researchers at the International Center for Research on Women found that in some communities rates of child marriage increase significantly when girls are a particular age. This "tipping point", or age at which rates of marriage increase dramatically, may occur years before the median age of marriage. Therefore, the researchers argue prevention programs should focus their programming on girls who are pre-tipping point age rather than only girls who are married before they reach the median age for marriage.[354]

Prevalence data

Prevalence data by country
Country % Females married < 18 Year of assessment Article Ref
  Afghanistan 28% 2017 Child marriage in Afghanistan [244][355]
  Angola 30% 2017 Child marriage in Angola [356]
  Bangladesh 59% 2018 Child marriage in Bangladesh [357]
  Burkina Faso 52% 2018 [357]
  Central African Republic 68% 2018 [357]
  Chad 67% 2017 [358]
  Democratic Republic of the Congo 37% 2017 Child marriage in Democratic Republic of the Congo [359]
  Cameroon 31% 2017 Child marriage in Cameroon [360]
  Republic of the Congo 33% 2017 Child marriage in Republic of the Congo [361]
  Eritrea 41% 2018 [357]
  Ethiopia 40% 2017 Child marriage in Ethiopia [362]
  India 27% 2015–16 Child marriage in India [363][364]
  Ivory Coast 27% 2017 Child marriage in Ivory Coast [365]
    Nepal 40% 2018 [357]
  Niger 76% 2018 [357]
  Nigeria 43% 2017 Child marriage in Nigeria [366]
  Malawi 42% 2018 [357]
  Madagascar 41% 2018 [357]
  Mali 52% 2017 Child marriage in Mali [367]
  Mauritania 37% 2018 [357]
  Mozambique 48% 2018 [357]
  Pakistan 18% 2018 Child marriage in Pakistan [244]
  Senegal 31% 2017 [368]
  Sierra Leone 39% 2018 [357]
  Somalia 45% 2017 Child marriage in Somalia [369]
  South Sudan 52% 2017 Child marriage in South Sudan [370]
  Uganda 40% 2018 [357]
  Zimbabwe 32% 2017 Child marriage in Zimbabwe [371]
Country % males married <18[372] year assessed
  Albania 1.2 2018
  Angola 6 2016
  Armenia 0.4 2016
  Benin 4.8 2018
  Belize 22.2 2016
  Bolivia 5.2 2016
  Côte d'Ivoire 3.5 2016
  Burundi 1.4 2017
  Ethiopia 5 2016
  Haiti 1.6 2017
  India 4.2 2016
  Laos 10.8 2017
    Nepal 10.3 2016
  Nigeria 3 2017
  Senegal 0.6 2017
  Sierra Leone 6.5 2017
  Timor-Leste 1.2 2016
  Tanzania 3.9 2016
  Uganda 5.5 2016

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b While canon 1083 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law sets the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females,[57]: c. 1083 §1  canon 97 defines a person younger than 18 year of age as a minor and subject to parental authority.[57]: cc. 97 §1, 98 §2  The authorization of the local ordinary must precede the celebration of the marriage of a minor if the marriage "cannot be recognized or celebrated according to the norm of civil law" or if the parents of a minor are "unaware or reasonably opposed".[57]: c. 1071 §1,2° and 6°  Each conference of bishops can "establish a higher age for the licit celebration of marriage".[57]: c. 1083 §§1–2  Canon 1072 requires that pastors discourage "marriage before the age at which a person usually enters marriage according to the accepted practices of the region."[57]: c. 1072  Edward N. Peters explains that canon 1083 "authorized episcopal conferences to recognize the concrete circumstances of marriage in their own territories and to raise the ages for licit marriages within a given nation" to more than the minimum age for a valid marriage.[58] Other canons that regulate marriage in general also apply, for example persons "who lack the sufficient use of reason" or "who suffer from a grave defect of discretion of judgment concerning the essential matrimonial rights and duties mutually to be handed over and accepted" "are incapable of contracting marriage."[57]: c. 1095 
  2. ^ some sources suggest age at marriage as six and some as seven, see Denise Spellberg (1996), Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr, Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0231079990, pp 39–40
  3. ^ Most sources suggest age at consummation as nine, and one that it may have been age 10; See: Denise Spellberg (1996), Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr, Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0231079990, pp. 39–40;
    The Ahmadiyya minority sect has published Pakistan's Muhammad Ali view that Sahih al-Bukhari is unauthentic, and argued that Aisha may have been a teenager; See: Ali, Muhammad (1997). Muhammad the Prophet. Ahamadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam. ISBN 978-0913321072.
    However, Ahmadiyya sect views about Islam and its history are widely disputed by mainstream Islam. See: Siddiq & Ahmad (1995), Enforced Apostasy: Zaheeruddin v. State and the Official Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan, Law & Inequality'-, 14: pp. 275–284.
  4. ^ See:
    • L. Ahmed, Women and the Advent of Islam, Signs, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Summer, 1986), pp. 677–678;
    • Cynthia Gorney, "Too Young to Wed – The secret world of child brides", National Geographic, June 2011, quote: "'If there were any danger in early marriage, Allah would have forbidden it,' a Yemeni member of parliament named Mohammed Al-Hamzi told me in the capital city of Sanaa one day. 'Something that Allah himself did not forbid, we cannot forbid.' Al-Hamzi, a religious conservative, is vigorously opposed to the legislative efforts in Yemen to prohibit marriage for girls below a certain age (17, in a recent version), and so far those efforts have met with failure. Islam does not permit marital relations before a girl is physically ready, he said, but the Holy Koran contains no specific age restrictions and so these matters are properly the province of family and religious guidance, not national law. Besides, there is the matter of the Prophet Muhammad's beloved Ayesha—nine years old, according to the conventional account, when the marriage was consummated."

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child, marriage, marriage, similar, union, formal, informal, between, child, under, certain, typically, years, adult, another, child, vast, majority, child, marriages, between, female, child, male, adult, rooted, gender, inequality, poster, warning, against, c. Child marriage is a marriage or similar union formal or informal between a child under a certain age typically 18 years and an adult or another child 1 The vast majority of child marriages are between a female child and a male adult 2 3 and are rooted in gender inequality 2 4 A poster warning against child marriage in a refugee camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq Although the age of majority legal adulthood and marriageable age are usually designated at age 18 both vary across countries and therefore the marriageable age may be older or younger in a given country 5 Even where the age is set at 18 years cultural traditions may override legislation and many jurisdictions permit earlier marriage with parental consent or in special circumstances such as teenage pregnancy 6 Child marriage violates the rights of children and has long term consequences for both child brides and child grooms 2 5 For child brides in addition to mental health issues and lack of access to education and career opportunities 2 these include adverse health effects as a result of early pregnancy and childbirth 5 Effects on child grooms include being ill prepared for certain responsibilities such as providing for the family early fatherhood and a lack of access to education and career opportunities 5 Child marriage is part of the practice of child betrothal which often includes civil cohabitation and a court approval of the engagement 7 8 Causes of child marriages include poverty bride price dowries cultural traditions religious and social pressures regional customs fear of the child remaining unmarried into adulthood illiteracy and perceived inability of women to work for money 4 9 10 Research indicates that comprehensive sex education can help to prevent child marriage 11 Child marriages have been common throughout history and continue to be widespread particularly in developing countries such as parts of Africa 12 13 South Asia 14 Southeast Asia 15 16 West Asia 17 18 Latin America 17 and Oceania 19 However even in developed countries legal exceptions still allow child marriage including exceptions in 44 US states 20 The incidence of child marriage has been falling in most parts of the world 2018 data from UNICEF showed that about 21 percent of young women worldwide aged 20 to 24 were married as children a 25 percent decrease from 10 years ago 21 The countries with the highest observed rates of child marriages below the age of 18 were Niger Chad Mali Bangladesh Guinea the Central African Republic Mozambique and Nepal all of which had rates above 50 22 Niger Chad Bangladesh Mali and Ethiopia were the countries with child marriage rates greater than 20 below the age of 15 according to multiple 2003 2009 surveys 23 24 Each year an estimated 12 million girls globally become married under the age of 18 25 Contents 1 History 2 Religious norms and laws 3 Effects on each gender 4 Causes 4 1 Dowry and bride price 4 2 Bride kidnapping 4 3 Debt repayment 4 4 Persecution forced migration and slavery 4 5 Fear poverty social pressures and a sense of protection 4 6 Religion culture and civil law 4 7 Marriageable age in religious sources 4 7 1 Judaism 4 7 2 Catholic Church 4 7 3 Islam 4 8 Politics and financial relationships 5 Effects on global regions 5 1 Africa 5 1 1 The Gambia 5 1 2 Kenya 5 1 3 Malawi 5 1 4 Morocco 5 1 5 Mozambique 5 1 6 Nigeria 5 1 7 South Africa 5 1 8 Tanzania 5 1 9 Zimbabwe 5 2 Americas 5 2 1 Latin America 5 2 2 Canada 5 2 3 United States 5 3 Asia 5 3 1 Western Asia 5 3 2 Southeast Asia 5 3 3 Indonesia 5 3 4 Malaysia 5 3 5 Philippines 5 3 6 Bangladesh 5 3 7 India 5 3 8 Nepal 5 3 9 Pakistan 5 3 10 Iran 5 4 Europe 5 4 1 General 5 4 2 European Union 5 4 3 Scandinavia 5 4 4 Balkans Eastern Europe 5 4 5 Belgium 5 4 6 Germany 5 4 7 Netherlands 5 4 8 Russia 5 4 9 United Kingdom 5 5 Oceania 6 Consequences 6 1 Health 6 2 Illiteracy and poverty 6 3 Domestic violence 6 4 Women s rights 6 5 Development 7 International initiatives to prevent child marriage 7 1 Tipping point analysis 8 Prevalence data 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 11 1 Works cited 12 External linksHistory Edit In 1533 17 year old Princess Emilia of Saxony was wed to George the Pious Margrave of Brandenburg Ansbach then aged 48 years Early marriages have been common in historical times including in Europe Presentation of Marie Antoinette to Dauphin Louis Auguste at Versailles before their marriage she at age 15 he at 16 on 16 May 1770 Before the industrial revolution in many parts of the world including India China and Eastern Europe women tended to marry immediately after reaching puberty These practices carried well into the 19th century in societies with largely rural populations 26 Men tended to marry later in societies where a married couple was expected to establish a household of their own That usually meant that men remained unmarried until they accumulated sufficient wealth to support a new home and were married in their mature age to adolescent girls 27 In ancient and medieval societies it was common for girls to be betrothed at or even before the age of puberty 28 29 According to Mordechai A Friedman arranging and contracting the marriage of a young girl were the undisputed prerogatives of her father in ancient Israel Most girls were married before the age of 15 often at the start of their puberty 30 In the Middle Ages the age at marriage seems to have been around puberty throughout the Jewish world 31 Ruth Lamdan writes The numerous references to child marriage in the 16th century Responsa literature and other sources shows that child marriage was so common it was virtually the norm In this context it is important to remember that in halakha the term minor refers to a girl under twelve years and a day A girl aged twelve and a half was already considered an adult in all respects 32 In Ancient Greece early marriage and teenage motherhood for girls existed 33 Boys were expected to marry in their teens as well In the Roman Empire girls were married from age of 12 and boys from age 14 34 In the Middle Ages under English civil laws derived from Roman laws marriages before the age of 16 existed In Imperial China child marriage was the norm 35 36 In contrast to other pre modern societies and for reasons that are subject to debate Northwest Europe was characterized by relatively late marriages for both men and women with both sexes commonly delaying marriage until their mid 20s or even 30s 37 38 39 The data available for England suggest this was the case by the 14th century The pattern was reflected in English common law which was the first in Western Europe to establish statutory rape laws and ages of consent for marriage In 1275 sexual relations with girls under either 12 or 14 depending on interpretation of the sources were criminalized a second law was made with more severe punishments for under the age of 10 in 1576 In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the British colonial administration introduced marriage age restrictions for Hindu and Muslim girls on the Indian subcontinent 26 A Scottish physician living in the 18th century Syria reported that locals tried to contract marriages for their children at a young age but the marriage was not consummated until the girl had come of age Evidence from 19th century Palestine suggests that husbands sometimes initiated sexual relations before their wives reached puberty but that it was a rare occurrence condemned socially and censured by sharia courts Writing in the 1830s Edward William Lane observed that few Egyptian girls remained single by the age of 16 but socio economic transformation educational reforms and modernity brought significant changes and by 1920 fewer than 10 of Egyptian women married before the age of 20 In 1923 Egypt s parliament set the minimum age of marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men 40 Religious norms and laws EditMost of the religions known in history have established a minimum age for marriage in one way or another Christian canon law forbade the marriage of a girl before the onset of puberty 41 The Hindu Vedas specifically the Rigveda and Atharvaveda have verses that indicate that during the Vedic period girls married well after attaining puberty and were of a mature age 42 The early Dharmasastra also states that girls should be married after they have attained puberty 43 while some texts extend the marriageable age to before puberty 44 In the Manusmriti which was not implemented as law 45 a father is considered to have wronged his daughter if he fails to marry her before puberty and if the girl is not married in less than three years after reaching puberty she can search for the husband herself 46 Jewish scholars and rabbis strongly discouraged marriages before the onset of puberty 30 but at the same time in exceptional cases girls ages 3 through 12 the legal age of consent according to halakha might be given in marriage by their fathers 47 48 By Judaism the minimum girl age for marriage was 12 years and one day na arah as mentioned in the ancient Talmud Mishnah books compiled between 536 BCE 70 CE redacted in the 3rd century CE Order Nashim Masechet Kiddushin 41 a amp b 49 According to halakha girls should not marry until they are 12 years and six months old bogeret 50 51 Although Moses Maimonides mentions in the Talmud Mishneh Torah compiled between 1170 and 1180 CE that in exceptional cases girls ages 3 through 12 might be given in marriage by their fathers 47 52 he also clarifies in verse 3 19 of the same chapter that Although a father has the option of consecrating his daughter to anyone he desires while she is a minor or while she is a maiden it is not proper for him to act in this manner 53 According to the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia apocryphal accounts that at the time of her betrothal to Joseph Mary the mother of Jesus was 12 14 years old 54 However the site warn readers that it isn t reliable To quote what the site said itself the apocryphal literature is full of details the non admittance of these works into the Canon of the Sacred Books casts a strong suspicion upon their contents Apocryphal is spurious of questionable authenticity Historically within the Catholic Church before the 1917 Code of Canon Law the minimum age for a dissoluble betrothal sponsalia de futuro was seven years in the contractees The minimum age for a valid marriage was puberty or nominally 14 for males and 12 for females 55 The 1917 Code of Canon Law raised the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females 56 The 1983 Code of Canon Law maintained the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females 57 c 1083 1 a English Ecclesiastical Law forbade the marriage of a girl before the age of puberty 59 There is no minimum marriage age defined in traditional Islamic law and the legal discussion of this topic centered primarily on women s physical maturity Classical Sunni jurisprudence allows a father to contract a marriage for his underaged daughter The appropriate age for consummating the marriage which could occur several years after signing the marriage contract was to be determined by the bride groom and the bride s guardian since medieval jurists held that the age of fitness for intercourse was too variable for legislation 60 This was based in part on the precedent set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad as described in the hadith collections considered to be authentic by Muslims According to these sources Muhammad married Aisha his third wife when she was about six b and consummated the marriage when she was about nine c d Some modern Muslim authors and Islamic scholars such as Ali Gomaa who served as the Grand Mufti of Egypt doubt the traditionally accepted narrative and believe based on other evidence that Aisha was in her late teens at the time of her marriage 61 As a general rule intercourse was prohibited for girls not able to undergo it on the grounds of potential physical harm Disputes regarding physical maturity between the involved parties were to be resolved by a judge potentially after examination by a female expert witness 60 The 1917 Codification of Islamic Family Law in the Ottoman Empire distinguished between the age of competence for marriage which was set at 18 for boys and 17 for girls and the minimum age for marriage set at 12 for boys and nine for girls Marriage below the age of competence was permissible only if proof of sexual maturity was accepted in court while marriage under the minimum age was forbidden During the 20th century sharia based legislation in most countries in the Middle East followed the Ottoman precedent in defining the age of competence while raising the minimum age to 15 or 16 for boys and 13 to 16 for girls 62 In 2019 Saudi Arabia raised the age of marriage to 18 63 Although by the beginning of the 21st century the laws of most countries have established the general minimum age for marriage at 18 years in many countries some exceptions allow marriage before this age with the consent of the parents and or by court decision In some countries a religious marriage is still recognized by the state authorities while in others a registered civil marriage is mandatory Effects on each gender EditChild marriage has lasting consequences on girls from their health mental and physical education and social development perspectives 2 These consequences last well beyond adolescence 64 One of the most common causes of death for girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries was pregnancy and childbirth 65 In Niger which is estimated to have the highest rate of child marriage in the world about 3 in 4 girls marry before their 18th birthday 66 67 Boys are sometimes married as children almost always to a female minor UNICEF states that girls are disproportionately affected by the practice Globally the prevalence of child marriage among boys is just one sixth that among girls 4 Research on the effects of child marriage on underage boys is scant which researchers state is likely because child marriage involving boys is less common and boys do not face the adverse health effects as a result of early pregnancy and childbirth 5 The effects of child marriage on boys include being ill prepared for certain responsibilities such as providing for the family early fatherhood and a lack of access to education and career opportunities 5 As of September 2014 update 156 million living men were married as underage boys 68 In its first in depth analysis of child grooms UNICEF revealed that an estimated 115 million boys and men around the world were married as children Of these 1 in 5 or 23 million boys were married before the age of 15 According to the data the Central African Republic has the highest prevalence of child marriage among males 28 followed by Nicaragua 19 and Madagascar 13 The estimates bring the total number of child brides and child grooms to 765 million Girls remain disproportionately affected with 1 in 5 young women aged 20 to 24 years old married before their 18th birthday compared to 1 in 30 young men 69 Causes EditAccording to UNFPA factors that promote and reinforce child marriage include poverty and economic survival strategies gender inequality sealing land or property deals or settling disputes control over sexuality and protecting family honor tradition and culture and insecurity particularly during war famine or epidemics 70 Other factors include family ties in which marriage is a means of consolidating powerful relations between families 70 Dowry and bride price Edit A traditional formal presentation of the bride price at a Thai engagement ceremony Providing a girl with a dowry at her marriage is an ancient practice which continues in some parts of the world especially in the Indian subcontinent Parents bestow property on the marriage of a daughter as a dowry which is often an economic challenge for many families The difficulty to save and preserve wealth for dowry was common particularly in times of economic hardship or persecution or unpredictable seizure of property and savings These difficulties pressed families to betroth their girls irrespective of her age as soon as they had the resources to pay the dowry Thus Goitein notes that European Jews would marry their girls early once they had collected the expected amount of dowry 71 A bride price is the amount paid by the groom to the parents of a bride for them to consent to him marrying their daughter In some countries the younger the bride the higher the bride price 72 73 This practice creates an economic incentive where girls are sought and married early by her family to the highest bidder Child marriages of girls is a way out of desperate economic conditions or simply a source of income to the parents 74 75 76 Bride price is another cause of child marriage and child trafficking 9 10 77 78 Bride kidnapping Edit Depiction of bride kidnapping Main article Bride kidnapping Bride kidnapping also known as bridenapping 79 marriage by abduction or marriage by capture is a practice in which a male abducts 80 the female he wishes to marry Bride kidnapping has been practiced around the world and throughout history It continues to occur in countries in Central Asia the Caucasus region and parts of Africa and among people as diverse as the Hmong in Southeast Asia the Tzeltal in Mexico and the Romani in Europe In most nations bride kidnapping is considered a crime rather than a valid form of marriage Some types of it may also be seen as falling along the continuum between forced marriage and arranged marriage However even when the practice is against the law judicial enforcement remains lax in some areas Bride kidnapping occurs in various parts of the world but it is most common in the Caucasus and Central Asia 81 Bride kidnapping is often a form of child marriage 82 It may be connected to the practice of bride price and the inability or unwillingness to pay it 83 Debt repayment Edit Main article Money marriage Money marriage refers to a marriage where a girl usually is married off to a man to settle debts owed by her parents 84 Persecution forced migration and slavery Edit Social upheavals such as wars major military campaigns forced religious conversion taking natives as prisoners of war and converting them into slaves arrest and forced migrations of people often made a suitable groom a rare commodity Bride s families would seek out any available bachelors and marry them to their daughters before events beyond their control moved the boy away Persecution and displacement of Roma and Jewish people in Europe colonial campaigns to get slaves from various ethnic groups in West Africa across the Atlantic for plantations Islamic campaigns to get Hindu slaves from India across Afghanistan s Hindu Kush as property and for work were some of the historical events that increased the practice of child marriage before the 19th century 71 85 86 Among Sephardi Jewish communities child marriages became frequent from the 10th to 13th centuries especially in Muslim Spain 87 This practice intensified after the Jewish community was expelled from Spain and resettled in the Ottoman Empire Child marriages among the Eastern Sephardic Jews continued through the 18th century in Islamic majority regions 87 88 89 Fear poverty social pressures and a sense of protection Edit English stage actress Ellen Terry was married at age 16 to George Frederic Watts who was 46 years old a marriage her parents thought would be advantageous later she said she was uncomfortable being a child bride Terry died at the age of 81 in 1928 A sense of social insecurity is a cause of child marriages across the world For example in Nepal parents fear social stigma if adult daughters past 18 years stay at home Others fear crimes such as rape which not only would be traumatic but may lead to less acceptance of the girl if she becomes a victim of such a crime 90 For example girls may not be seen as eligible for marriage if they are not virgins 91 In other cultures the fear is that an unmarried girl may engage in illicit relationships 92 or elope causing a permanent social blemish to her siblings or that the impoverished family may be unable to find bachelors for grown up girls in their socioeconomic group Such fears and social pressures have been proposed as causes that lead to child marriages Insofar as child marriage is a social norm in practicing communities the elimination of child marriage must come through a changing of those social norms The mindset of the communities and what is believed to be the proper outcome for a child bride must be shifted to bring about a change in the prevalence of child marriage 93 Extreme poverty may make daughters an economic burden on the family which may be relieved by their early marriage 94 to the benefit of the family as well as the girl herself Poor parents may have few alternatives they can afford for the girls in the family they often view marriage as a means to ensure their daughter s financial security and to reduce the economic burden of a growing adult on the family 6 95 Child marriage can also be seen as means of ensuring a girl s economic security particularly if she lacks family members to provide for her 96 In reviews of Jewish community history scholars 97 98 99 claim poverty shortage of grooms uncertain social and economic conditions were a cause of frequent child marriages Drawings by young Syrian refugee girls in a community center in southern Lebanon promote the prevention of child marriage An additional factor causing child marriage is the parental belief that early marriage offers protection Parents feel that marriage provides their daughter with a sense of protection from sexual promiscuity and safe from sexually transmitted infections 6 73 However in reality young girls tend to marry older men placing them at an increased risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection Protection through marriage may play a specific role in conflict settings Families may have their young daughters marry members of an armed group or military in hopes that they will be better protected Girls may also be taken by armed groups and forced into marriages 96 Religion culture and civil law Edit Although the general marriageable age is 18 in the majority of countries most jurisdictions allow for exceptions for underage youth with parental and or judicial consent 70 Such laws are neither limited to developing countries nor a state s religion In some countries a religious marriage by itself has legal validity while in others it does not as civil marriage is obligatory For Catholics incorporated into the Latin Church the 1983 Code of Canon Law sets the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females 57 c 1083 1 a In 2015 Spain raised its minimum marriageable age to 18 16 with court consent from the previous 14 100 In Mexico marriage under 18 is allowed with parental consent from age 14 for girls and age 16 for boys 101 In Ukraine in 2012 the Family Code was amended to equalize the marriageable age for girls and boys to 18 with courts being allowed to grant permission to marry from 16 years of age if it is established that the marriage is in the best interest of the youth 102 Many states in the US permit child marriages with the court s permission Since 2015 the minimum marriageable age throughout Canada is 16 In Canada the age of majority is set by province territory at 18 or 19 so minors under this age have additional restrictions i e parental and court consent Under the Criminal Code Art 293 2 Marriage under the age of 16 years reads Everyone who celebrates aids or participates in a marriage rite or ceremony knowing that one of the persons being married is under the age of 16 years is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years 103 The Civil Marriage Act also states 2 2 No person who is under the age of 16 years may contract marriage 104 In the UK marriage is allowed for 16 17 years old with parental consent in England and Wales as well as in Northern Ireland and even without parental consent in Scotland 105 However a marriage of a person under 16 is void under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 106 The United Nations Population Fund stated the following 70 In 2010 158 countries reported that 18 years was the minimum legal age for marriage for women without parental consent or approval by a pertinent authority However in 146 countries state or customary law allows girls younger than 18 to marry with the consent of parents or other authorities in 52 countries girls under age 15 can marry with parental consent In contrast 18 is the legal age for marriage without consent among males in 180 countries Additionally in 105 countries boys can marry with the consent of a parent or a pertinent authority and in 23 countries boys under age 15 can marry with parental consent Lower legally allowed marriage age does not necessarily cause high rates of child marriages However there is a correlation between restrictions placed by laws and the average age of first marriage In the United States per 1960 Census data 3 5 of girls married before the age of 16 while an additional 11 9 married between 16 and 18 States with lower marriage age limits saw higher percentages of child marriages 34 This correlation between the higher age of marriage in civil law and the observed frequency of child marriages breaks down in countries with Islam as the state religion In Islamic nations many countries do not allow child marriage of girls under their civil code of laws But the state recognized Sharia religious laws and courts in all these nations have the power to override the civil code and often do UNICEF reports that the top eight nations in the world with the highest observed child marriage rates are Niger 75 Chad 72 Mali 71 Bangladesh 64 Guinea 63 Central African Republic 61 Mozambique 56 and Nepal 51 22 Marriageable age in religious sources Edit Judaism Edit Ancient Rabbis set the age of marriage for every Israelite at 18 years old males are expected to be married by 20 years old in teenage marriage and females can stay unmarried but must be celibate 107 In Rabbinic Judaism males cannot consent to marriage until they reach the age of 13 years and a day and have undergone puberty They are considered minors until the age of twenty The same rules apply to females except their age is 12 years and a day If females show no signs of puberty and males show no signs of puberty or do show impotence they automatically become adults by age 35 and can marry 108 109 A large age gap between spouses in either direction is advised against as unwise 110 A younger woman marrying a significantly older man however is especially problematic marrying one s young daughter to an old man was declared as reprehensible as forcing her into prostitution 111 A ketannah literally meaning little one was any girl between the age of 3 years and 12 years plus one day 112 she was subject to her father s authority and he could arrange a marriage for her without her agreement 112 However after reaching the age of maturity she would have to agree to the marriage to be considered married 113 114 Catholic Church Edit The minimum ages of consent for marriage in the Catholic Church are 14 for girls and 16 for boys Being underage constitutes a diriment impediment That is a marriage involving an underage bride or groom is canonically invalid A Conference of Bishops may adopt a higher age for marriage but in that case the higher age only creates a prohibitive impediment that is a marriage involving a bride or groom above the Church s minimum age but below that set by the Conference is valid but illicit Permission to marry against a civil authority s directive requires the permission of the Ordinary which in the case of sensible and equal laws regarding marriage age is not usually granted The permission by the Ordinary is also required in case of a marriage of a minor when their parents are unaware of his marriage or if their parents reasonably oppose the marriage 115 Islam Edit In classical Islamic law suitability for marital relations is conditional on physical maturity bulugh and mental maturity rushd Classical jurists did not stipulate a minimum marriageable age because they did not believe that maturity is reached by everyone at a specific age 116 117 104 6 118 Buchler and Schlater observe that marriageable age according to classical Islamic law coincides with the occurrence of puberty The notion of puberty refers to signs of physical maturity such as the emission of semen or the onset of menstruation Traditional schools of Islamic jurisprudence madhaahib define the age of full legal capacity to enter marriage as follows 119 Male age Female age NotesShafi i 15 15Hanbali 15 15Maliki 17 17Hanafi 12 18 9 17 Marriageable age is whenever the person reaches puberty which may vary person to person Listed ages are when Hanafis presume puberty occurs in males and females 120 Jafari 15 9 ShiaAccording to Buchler and Schlater while marriageable age is not the same as the legal majority under civil law these age limits may correspond 119 The 1917 codification of Islamic family law in the Ottoman Empire distinguished between the age of competence for marriage which was set at 18 for boys and 17 for girls and the minimum age for marriage which followed the traditional Hanafi ages of the legal majority of 12 for boys and 9 for girls Marriage below the age of competence was permissible only if proof of sexual maturity was accepted in court while marriage under the minimum age was forbidden During the 20th century most countries in the Middle East followed the Ottoman precedent in defining the age of competence while raising the minimum age to 15 or 16 for boys and 13 16 for girls Marriage below the age of competence is subject to approval by a judge and the legal guardian of the adolescent Egypt diverged from this pattern by setting the age limits of 18 for boys and 16 for girls without a distinction between competence for marriage and minimum age 62 In 2020 Saudi Arabia officially banned all marriages under the age of 18 121 The push to ban child marriage was initially opposed by senior clergy who argued that a woman reaches adulthood at puberty 122 However by 2019 the Saudi Shura Council had outlawed marriages under the age of 15 and required court approval for those under 18 123 Politics and financial relationships Edit Child marriage in 1697 of Marie Adelaide of Savoy age 12 to Louis heir apparent of France age 15 The marriage created a political alliance Child marriages may depend upon socio economic status The aristocracy in some cultures as in the European feudal era tended to use child marriage as a method to secure political ties Families were able to cement political and or financial ties by having their children marry 124 The betrothal is considered a binding contract between the families and the children The breaking of a betrothal can have serious consequences both for the families and for the betrothed individuals themselves Effects on global regions EditA UNFPA report stated For the period 2000 2011 just over one third an estimated 34 percent of women aged 20 to 24 years in developing regions were married or in union before their eighteenth birthday In 2010 this was equivalent to almost 67 million women About 12 percent of them were married or in union before age 15 70 The prevalence of child marriage varies substantially among countries 70 Around the world girls from rural areas are twice as likely to marry as children as those from urban areas 125 Africa Edit source source source source source source source source source source source source RUN a short documentary film focusing on child marriage in Nigeria Poster against child and forced marriage According to UNICEF Africa has the highest incidence rates of child marriage with over 50 of girls marrying under the age of eighteen in five nations 22 Girls in West and Central Africa have the highest risk of marrying in childhood Niger has one of the highest rates of early marriage in sub Saharan Africa Among Nigerien women between the ages of twenty and twenty four 76 reported marrying before the age of eighteen and 28 reported marrying before the age of fifteen 126 This UNICEF report is based on data that is derived from a small sample survey between 1995 and 2004 and the current rate is unknown given the lack of infrastructure and in some cases regional violence 127 UNICEF stated in 2018 that although the number of child marriages has declined on a worldwide scale the problem remains most severe in Africa despite the fact that Ethiopia cut child marriage rates by a third 128 African countries have enacted marriageable age laws to limit marriage to a minimum age of 16 to 18 depending on the jurisdiction In Ethiopia Chad and Niger the legal marriage age is 15 but local customs and religious courts have the power to allow marriages below 12 years of age 129 Child marriages of girls in West Africa Central Africa and Northeast Africa are widespread 130 Additionally poverty religion tradition and conflict make the rate of child marriage in Sub Saharan Africa very high in some regions 73 131 In many traditional systems a man pays a bride price to the girl s family to marry her comparable to the customs of dowry and dower In many parts of Africa this payment in cash cattle or other valuables decreases as a girl gets older Even before a girl reaches puberty it is common for a married girl to leave her parents to be with her husband Many marriages are related to poverty with parents needing the bride price of a daughter to feed clothe educate and house the rest of the family In Mali the female male ratio of marriage before age 18 is 72 1 in Kenya 21 1 73 The various reports indicate that in many Sub Saharan countries there is a high incidence of marriage among girls younger than 15 Many governments have tended to overlook the particular problems resulting from child marriage including obstetric fistulae premature births stillbirth sexually transmitted diseases including cervical cancer and malaria 73 In parts of Ethiopia and Nigeria many girls are married before the age of 15 some as young as 7 132 126 In parts of Mali 39 of girls are married before the age of 15 In Niger and Chad over 70 of girls are married before the age of 18 73 The Gambia Edit In 2016 during a feast ending the Muslim holy month of Ramadan Gambian President Yahya Jammeh announced that child and forced marriages were banned 133 134 Kenya Edit In Kenya 23 of girls are married before age 18 including 4 by age 15 135 Malawi Edit In 2015 Malawi passed a law banning child marriage which raises the minimum age for marriage to 18 136 This major accomplishment came following years of effort by the Girls Empowerment Network campaign which ultimately led to tribal and traditional leaders banning the cultural practice of child marriage 137 Morocco Edit In Morocco child marriage is a common practice Over 41 000 marriages every year involve child brides 138 Before 2003 child marriages did not require a court or state s approval In 2003 Morocco passed the family law Moudawana that raised the minimum age of marriage for girls from 14 to 18 with the exception that underage girls may marry with the permission of the government recognized official court and girl s guardian 139 140 Over the 10 years preceding 2008 requests for child marriages have been predominantly approved by Morocco s Ministry for Social Development and have increased c 29 of all marriages 138 141 Some child marriages in Morocco are a result of Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code a law that allows rapists to avoid punishment if they marry their underage victims 142 143 Article 475 was amended in January 2014 after much campaigning and rapists can legally no longer avoid sentencing by marrying their victims 144 Mozambique Edit In 2019 Mozambique s national assembly passed a law prohibiting child marriage This law came after national movements condemning Mozambique s high rate of child marriage with 50 of girls marrying under the age of 18 145 Nigeria Edit As of 2006 15 20 of school dropouts in Nigeria were the result of child marriage 146 In 2013 Nigeria attempted to change Section 29 subsection 4 of its laws and thereby prohibit child marriages Christianity and Islam are each practiced by roughly half of its population and the country continues with personal laws from its British colonial era laws where child marriages are forbidden for its Christians and allowed for its Muslims 147 148 In Nigeria child marriage is a divisive topic and widely practiced In northern states predominantly Muslim over 50 of the girls marry before the age of 15 149 South Africa Edit In South Africa the law provides for respecting the marriage practices of traditional marriages whereby a person might be married as young as 12 for females and 14 for males 73 Early marriage is cited as a barrier to continuing education for girls and boys This includes absuma arranged marriages set up between cousins at birth in local Islamic ethnic group bride kidnapping and elopement decided on by the children 150 Tanzania Edit In 2016 the Tanzanian High Court in a case filed by the Msichana Initiative a lobbying group that advocates for girls right to education ruled in favor of protecting girls from the harms of early marriage 134 151 It is now illegal for anyone younger than 18 to marry in Tanzania 151 Zimbabwe Edit A 2015 Human Rights Watch report stated that in Zimbabwe one third of women aged between 20 and 49 years old had married before reaching the age of 18 152 In January 2016 two women who had been married as children brought a court case requesting a change in the legal age of marriage to the Constitutional Court 153 with the result that the court declared that 18 is to be the minimum age for a legal marriage for both men and women previously the legal age had been 16 for women and 18 for men The law took effect immediately and was hailed by several of human rights women s rights medical and legal groups as a landmark ruling for the country 154 Americas Edit Latin America Edit Child marriage is common in Latin America and the Caribbean island nations About 29 of girls are married before age 18 17 Dominican Republic Honduras Brazil Guatemala Nicaragua Haiti and Ecuador report some of the highest rates in the Americas 13 while Bolivia and Guyana have shown the sharpest decline in child marriage rates as of 2012 155 Brazil is ranked fourth in the world in terms of absolute numbers of girls married or cohabitating by age fifteen 156 Poverty and lack of laws mandating minimum age for marriage have been cited as reasons of child marriage in Latin America 157 158 In an effort to combat the widespread belief among poor rural and indigenous communities that child marriage is a route out of poverty some NGOs are working with communities in Latin America to shift norms and create safe spaces for adolescent girls 156 In Guatemala early marriage is most common among indigenous Mayan communities 159 In southeastern Colombia historically the indigenous Nasa sometimes married at early ages to dissuade colonizers from coercively taking girls 160 Canada Edit Since 2015 the minimum marriageable age throughout Canada is 16 In Canada the age of majority is set by province territory at 18 or 19 so minors under this age have additional restrictions i e parental and court consent Under the Criminal Code Art 293 2 Marriage under age of 16 years reads Everyone who celebrates aids or participates in a marriage rite or ceremony knowing that one of the persons being married is under the age of 16 years is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years 103 The Civil Marriage Act also states 2 2 No person who is under the age of 16 years may contract marriage 104 According to a study from McGill University from 2000 to 2018 3 600 marriage certificates were issued to children mostly girls under 18 in Canada 161 United States Edit Main articles Child marriage in the United States and Age of marriage in the United States Child marriage as defined by UNICEF is observed in the United States The UNICEF definition of child marriage includes couples who are formally married or who live together as a sexually active couple in an informal union with at least one member usually the girl being less than 18 years old 4 The latter practice is more common in the United States and it is officially called cohabitation According to a 2010 report by the United States National Center for Health Statistics 2 1 of all girls in the 15 17 age group were either in a child marriage or in an informal union In the age group of 15 19 7 6 of all girls in the United States were formally married or in an informal union The child marriage rates were higher for certain ethnic groups and states In Hispanic groups for example 6 6 of all girls in the 15 17 age group were formally married or in an informal union and 13 of the 15 19 age group were 7 Over 350 000 babies are born to teenage mothers every year in the United States and over 50 000 of these are second babies to teen mothers 162 Laws regarding child marriage vary in the different states of the United States Generally children 16 and over may marry with parental consent with the age of 18 being the minimum in all but two states to marry without parental consent However all states but Delaware New Jersey and Pennsylvania have exceptions for child marriage within their laws and although those under 16 generally require a court order in addition to parental consent 163 when those exceptions are taken into account 17 states have no minimum age requirement 20 Until 2008 the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints practiced child marriage through the concept of spiritual marriage as soon as it was possible for girls to bear children as part of its polygamy practice but laws have raised the age of legal marriage in response to criticism of the practice 164 In 2007 church leader Warren Jeffs was convicted of being an accomplice to statutory rape of a minor due to arranging a marriage between a 14 year old girl and a 19 year old man 165 In March 2008 officials of the state of Texas believed that children at the Yearning For Zion Ranch were being married to adults and were being abused 166 The state of Texas removed all 468 children from the ranch and placed them into temporary state custody 166 After the Austin s 3rd Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that Texas acted improperly in removing them from the YFZ Ranch the children were returned to their parents or relatives 167 In 2008 the Church changed its policy in the United States to no longer marry individuals younger than the local legal age 168 169 Between 2000 and 2015 there were at least 207 468 child marriages in the United States of which over 1 000 marriage licences were for children under 15 some as young as ten years old 170 In 2018 Delaware became the first state to ban child marriage without exceptions 171 followed by New Jersey the same year 172 In 2020 Pennsylvania became the third state to ban it 172 Asia Edit More than half of all child marriages occur in the South Asian countries of India Pakistan Bangladesh and Nepal 173 There was a decrease in the rates of child marriage across the Indian subcontinent from 1991 to 2007 but the decrease was observed among young adolescent girls and not girls in their late teens Some scholars 174 believe this age specific reduction was linked to girls increasingly attending school until about age 15 and then marrying Western Asia Edit A 2013 report claims 53 of all married women in Afghanistan were married before age 18 and 21 of all were married before age 15 Afghanistan s official minimum age of marriage for girls is 15 with her father s permission 175 In all 34 provinces of Afghanistan the customary practice of ba ad is another reason for child marriages this custom involves village elders jirga settling disputes between families or unpaid debts or ruling punishment for a crime by forcing the guilty family to give their 5 to 12 year old girls as a wife Sometimes a girl is forced into child marriage for a crime her uncle or distant relative is alleged to have committed 176 177 Andrew Bushell claims rate of marriage of 8 to 13 year old girls exceeding 50 in Afghan refugee camps along the Pakistan border 178 Over half of Yemeni girls are married before 18 some by the age eight 179 180 Yemen government s Sharia Legislative Committee has blocked attempts to raise marriage age to either 15 or 18 on grounds that any law setting minimum age for girls is un Islamic Yemeni Muslim activists argue that some girls are ready for marriage at age 9 181 182 According to Human Rights Watch HRW in 1999 the minimum marriage age 15 for women was abolished the onset of puberty interpreted by conservatives to be at age nine was set as a requirement for consummation of marriage 183 In practice Yemeni law allows girls of any age to wed but it forbids sex with them until the indefinite time they re suitable for sexual intercourse 179 As with Africa the marriage incidence data for Yemen in HRW report is from surveys between 1990 and 2000 Current data is difficult to obtain because of regional violence In April 2008 Nujood Ali a 10 year old girl successfully obtained a divorce after being raped under these conditions Her case prompted calls to raise the legal age for marriage to 18 184 Later in 2008 the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood proposed to define the minimum age for marriage at 18 years The law was passed in April 2009 with the age voted for as 17 But the law was dropped the next day following maneuvers by opposing parliamentarians Negotiations to pass the legislation continue 185 Meanwhile Yemenis inspired by Nujood s efforts continue to push for change with Nujood involved in at least one rally 186 In September 2013 an 8 year old girl died of internal bleeding and uterine rupture on her wedding night after marrying a 40 year old man 187 The widespread prevalence of child marriage in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been documented by human rights groups 188 Saudi clerics have justified the marriage of girls as young as 9 with sanction from the judiciary 189 No laws define a minimum age of consent in Saudi Arabia though drafts for possible laws have been created since 2011 190 Members of the Saudi Shoura Council in 2019 approved fresh regulations for minor marriages that will outlaw the marrying of 15 year olds and force the need for court approval for those under 18 Chairman of the Human Rights Committee at the Shoura Council Dr Hadi Al Yami said that introduced controls were based on in depth studies presented to the body He pointed out that the regulation vetted by the Islamic Affairs Committee at the Shoura Council has raised the age of marriage to 18 and prohibited it for those under 15 123 Saudi Arabia has officially updated the law banning all marriages under the age of 18 121 Research by the United Nations Population Fund indicates that 28 2 of marriages in Turkey almost one in three involve girls under 18 191 192 Child marriage was also found to be prevalent among Syrian and Palestinian Syrian refugees in Lebanon in addition to other forms of sexual and gender based violence Marriage was seen as a potential way to protect family honor and protect a girl from rape given how common rape was during the conflict 193 Incidents of child marriages increased in Syria and among Syrian refugees over the course of the conflict The proportion of Syrian refugee girls living in Jordan who were married increased from 13 in 2011 to 32 in 2014 194 Journalists Magnus Wennman and Carina Bergfeldt documented the practice and some of its results 195 Southeast Asia Edit Hill tribes girls are often married young For the Karen people it is possible that two couples can arrange their children s marriage before the children are born 196 Indonesia Edit In a move to curb child marriage in Indonesia the minimum marriage age for girls in Indonesia will be raised to 19 in 2022 Previously under the 1974 marriage law the marriage age for girls was 16 and there was no minimum with judicial consent 197 198 There has been an increase in underage marriage which has been attributed to a rise in social networking sites like Facebook It has been reported that in areas like Gunung Kidul Yogyakarta couples become acquainted through Facebook and continuing their relationships until girls became pregnant 199 Under Indonesian law underage marriage is prosecuted as sexual abuse though unregistered marriages between young girls and older men are common in rural areas 200 In one case that caused a nationwide outcry a wealthy Muslim cleric married a 12 year old girl He was prosecuted for sexually abusing a minor and sentenced to 4 years in jail 200 201 Among the Atjeh of Sumatra girls formerly married before puberty The husbands though usually older were still unfit for sexual union 202 Malaysia Edit This section s tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia See Wikipedia s guide to writing better articles for suggestions October 2019 Learn how and when to remove this template message In June 2018 the Malaysian public learned that a 41 year old Malaysian man had married an 11 year old girl in Golok a border town in southern Thailand 203 The man who already had two wives and six children was said to be the imam of a surau at a village in Gua Musang Kelantan 204 The parents of the 11 year old girl defended their decision to allow their daughter s marriage to the man 205 In response to this incident Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said that the marriage remained valid under Islam 206 She also said in a press statement that the Malaysian government unequivocally opposes child marriages and is already taking steps to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 207 Following this controversy Minister in the Prime Minister s Department Datuk Mujahid Yusof Rawa proposed a blanket ban on marriages involving minors 208 209 210 211 In response PAS Vice President Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said that imposing a blanket ban on child marriage contravened Islamic religious teachings and therefore could not be accepted 212 He also claimed it would be better to enforce existing laws to protect young children from being forced into unwanted early marriages 213 In July 2018 another case of a child bride was reported in Malaysia involving a 19 year old man from Terengganu and a 13 year old girl from Kelantan 214 In August 2018 Selangor announced plans for an amendment to the Islamic Family Law State of Selangor Enactment 2003 which would raise the minimum age of marriage for Muslim women from 16 to 18 years 215 Another child marriage case was covered by the media in September 2018 216 217 Malaysia planned to tighten the requirements for child marriages in 2019 218 Subsequently any marriage with minors would have to go through a stringent approval process involving Shariah Court Department the Home Ministry State Religious Council and Customary Courts Philippines Edit In December 2021 President Rodrigo Duterte signed a law criminalizing child marriage including its facilitation and solemnization and cohabitation of an adult with a child outside wedlock 219 220 Before the law change the legal age for marriage was 18 for most Filipinos however Muslim Filipino boys were able to marry from age 15 and Muslim girls from puberty 221 According to UNICEF 15 of Filipino girls were married before age 18 and 2 were married by 15 222 mostly in the Muslim dominated Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao region 223 Bangladesh Edit Child marriage rates in Bangladesh are amongst the highest in the world 22 Every 2 out of 3 marriages involve child marriages According to statistics from 2005 49 of women then between 25 and 29 were married by the age of 15 in Bangladesh 126 According to a 2008 study for each additional year a girl in rural Bangladesh is not married she will attend school an additional 0 22 years on average 224 The later girls were married the more likely they were to utilize preventive health care 224 Married girls in the region were found to have less influence on family planning higher rates of maternal mortality and lower status in their husband s family than girls who married later 224 Another study found that women who married at age 18 or older were less likely to experience IPV intimate partner violence than those married before age 18 It also found that girls married before age 15 were at an even higher risk for IPV 225 India Edit Main article Child marriage in India In 1900 Rana Prathap Kumari aged 12 married Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV aged 16 Two years later he was recognized as the Maharaja of Mysore under British India According to UNICEF s State of the World s Children 2009 report 47 of India s women aged 20 24 married before the legal age of 18 with 56 marrying before age 18 in rural areas 226 The report also showed that 40 of the world s child marriages occur in India 227 As with Africa this UNICEF report is based on data that is derived from a small sample survey in 1999 228 The latest available UNICEF report for India uses 2004 2005 household survey data on a small sample and other scholars 173 report lower incidence rates for India According to Raj et al the 2005 small sample household survey data suggests 22 of girls ever married aged 16 18 20 of girls in India married between 13 and 16 and 2 6 married before age 13 According to 2011 nationwide census of India the average age of marriage for women in India is 21 229 The child marriage rates in India according to a 2009 representative survey dropped to 7 230 In its 2001 demographic report the Census of India stated zero married girls below age 10 1 4 million married girls out of 59 2 million girls in the age 10 14 and 11 3 million married girls out of 46 3 million girls in the age 15 19 which includes 18 19 age group 231 For 2011 the Census of India reports child marriage rates dropping further to 3 7 of females aged less than 18 being married 232 The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 was passed during the tenure of British rule on Colonial India It forbade the marriage of a male younger than 21 or a female younger than 18 for Hindus Buddhists Christians and most people of India However this law did not and currently does not apply to India s 165 million Muslim population and only applies to India s Hindu Christian Jain Sikh and other religious minorities This link of law and religion was formalized by the British colonial rule with the Muslim personal laws codified in the Indian Muslim Personal Law Shariat Application Act of 1937 The age at which India s Muslim girls can legally marry according to this Muslim Personal Law is 9 and can be lower if her guardian wali decides she is sexually mature 233 234 Over the last 25 years All India Muslim Personal Law Board and other Muslim civil organizations have actively opposed India wide laws and enforcement action against child marriages they have argued that Indian Muslim families have a religious right to marry a girl aged 15 or even 12 235 Several states of India claim specially high child marriage rates in their Muslim and tribal communities 236 237 India with a population of over 1 2 billion has the world s highest total number of child marriages It is a significant social issue As of 2016 the situation has been legally rectified by The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 According to National Plan of Action for Children 2005 published by Indian government s Department of Women and Child Development set a goal to eliminate child marriage completely by 2010 In 2006 The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 was passed to prohibit solemnization of child marriages This law states that men must be at least 21 years of age and women must but be at least 18 years of age to marry Some Muslim organizations planned to challenge the new law in the Supreme Court of India 238 In latter years various high courts in India including the Gujarat High Court 239 the Karnataka High Court 240 and the Madras High Court 241 have ruled that the act prevails over any personal law including Muslim personal law Nepal Edit Main article Child marriage in Nepal UNICEF reported that 28 8 of marriages in Nepal were child marriages as of 2011 242 A UNICEF discussion paper determined that 79 6 percent of Muslim girls in Nepal 69 7 percent of girls living in hilly regions irrespective of religion and 55 7 percent of girls living in other rural areas are all married before the age of 15 Girls born into the highest wealth quintile marry about two years later than those from the other quintiles 243 Pakistan Edit Main article Child marriage in Pakistan According to a UNICEF report from 2018 around 18 of the girls in Pakistan were married before the age of 18 244 245 and 4 of the girls were married before the age of 15 244 In the past two 2013 reports suggest that over 50 of all marriages in Pakistan involve girls less than 18 years old 246 247 The exact number of child marriages in Pakistan below the age of 13 is unknown but rising according to the United Nations 248 Another custom in Pakistan called swara or vani involves village elders solving family disputes or settling unpaid debts by marrying off girls The average marriage age of swara girls is between 5 and 9 249 250 Similarly the custom of watta satta has been cited 251 as a cause of child marriages in Pakistan According to Population Council 35 of all females in Pakistan become mothers before they reach the age of 18 and 67 have experienced pregnancy 69 of these have given birth before they reach the age of 19 252 Less than 4 of married girls below the age of 19 had some say in choosing her spouse over 80 were married to a near or distant relative Child marriage and early motherhood is common in Pakistan 253 Iran Edit Though the legal age of marriage in Iran is 13 years for girls and 15 for boys there are cases of girls below the age of 10 being married 254 full citation needed The same source pointed out that child marriages are more common in socially backward rural areas often afflicted with high levels of illiteracy and drug addiction In October 2019 a prosecutor annulled the marriage of an 11 year old girl to her adult cousin in rural Iran and said he was indicting the mullah officiant and the girl s parents for an illegal underage marriage 255 According to the Iranian Students News Agency nearly 6 000 children are married each year in Iran 255 The U N Committee on the Rights of the Child CRC examining child marriage in Iran has warned of a rising number of young girls forced into marriage in Iran 256 The Committee deplored the fact that the State party allows sexual intercourse involving girls as young as 9 lunar years and that other forms of sexual abuse of even younger children is not criminalized 257 CRC said that Tehran must repeal all provisions that authorize condone or lead to child sexual abuse and called for the age of sexual consent to be increased from nine years old to 16 The Society For Protecting The Rights of The Child said that 43 459 girls aged under 15 married in 2009 In 2010 716 girls under the age of 10 married up from 449 in the year prior 256 On 8 March 2018 a member of the Tehran City Council Shahrbanoo Amani said that there were 15 000 widows under the age of 15 in the country 258 Europe Edit General Edit Each European country has its own laws in both the European Union and the Council of Europe the marriageable age falls within the jurisdiction of individual member states The Istanbul convention the first legally binding instrument in Europe in the field of violence against women and domestic violence 259 only requires countries which ratify it to prohibit forced marriage Article 37 and to ensure that forced marriages can be easily voided without further victimization Article 32 but does not make any reference to a minimum age of marriage European Union Edit In the European Union the general age of marriage as a right is 18 in all member states When all exceptions are taken into account such as judicial or parental consent the minimum age is 16 in most countries and in Estonia it is 15 In 6 countries marriage under 18 is completely prohibited By contrast in 6 countries there is no set minimum age although all these countries require the authorization of a public authority such as judge or social worker for the marriage to take place State Minimum age NotesMinimum age when all exceptions are taken into account General age Austria 16 18 16 with parental consent 260 Belgium none 18 Younger than 18 and only after judicial consent with no strict minimum age With parental consent serious reasons are required for a minor to obtain judicial consent for a marriage without parental consent serious reasons are required and the unwillingness of the parents has to constitute an abuse 261 Bulgaria 16 18 The new 2009 Family Code fixes the age at 18 but allows for an exception for 16 years olds stating that Upon exception in case that important reasons impose this matrimony may be concluded by a person at the age of 16 with permission by the regional judge It further states that both persons wanting to marry as well as the parents guardians of the minor must be consulted by the judge Chapter 2 Article 6 262 Croatia 16 18 16 with judicial consent Cyprus 16 18 16 with parental consent if there are serious reasons for the marriage 263 264 Czech Republic 16 18 Article 672 of Act No 89 2012 Coll the Civil Code which came into force in 2014 states that the court may in exceptional cases allow a marriage of a 16 year old if there are serious reasons for it 265 Denmark 18 18 Since 2017 marriage is no longer allowed under 18 266 Estonia 15 18 15 with court permission 267 268 Finland 18 18 Under 18 marriages with judicial authorization were banned in 2019 269 France none 18 Under 18 needs judicial authorization 270 Germany 18 18 The minimum age was set at 18 in 2017 271 Greece none 18 Under 18 requires court permission which may be given if there are serious reasons for such a marriage 263 272 Hungary 16 18 16 with authorization from the guardianship authority 273 Ireland 18 18 Since 2019 marriage under 18 is banned 274 Italy 16 18 16 with court consent 275 Latvia 16 18 16 with court consent 276 Lithuania none girls 15 boys 18 15 with court permission Girls can marry below 15 with court permission if they are pregnant 277 Luxembourg none 18 Under 18 need judicial permission New laws of 2014 fixed the marriageable at 18 for both sexes prior to these regulations the age was 16 for females and 18 for males The new laws still allow both sexes to obtain judicial consent to get married under 18 278 Malta 16 18 16 with parental consent 279 Netherlands 18 18 Exceptions were removed by a change in the law in 2015 280 Poland 16 girls 18 boys 18 16 for girls with court consent 281 Portugal 16 18 16 with parental consent 282 Romania 16 18 16 if there are valid reasons with both judicial and parental permission as well as medical approval 283 Slovakia 16 18 16 with court consent with a serious reason such as pregnancy citation needed Slovenia none 18 Under 18 may be approved by the Social Work Centre if there are well founded reasons arising upon the investigation of the situation of the minor Art 23 24 of the Law on Marriage and Family Relations 284 Spain 16 18 16 with court consent Sweden 18 18 Not possible to marry under the age of 18 for Swedish citizens since 1 July 2014 285 Authorities take a different approach to individuals who were already married when the arrive in Sweden as during the European migrant crisis the Swedish Migration Agency identified 132 married children of which 65 were in Malmo 286 Scandinavia Edit In April 2016 Reuters reported Child brides sometimes tolerated in Nordic asylum centers despite bans For example at least 70 girls under 18 were living as married couples in Sweden in Norway some under 16 lived with their partners In Denmark it was determined there were dozens of cases of girls living with older men prompting Minister Inger Stojberg to state she would stop housing child brides in asylum centres 287 Marriage under 18 was completely banned in Sweden in 2014 in Denmark in 2017 266 and in Finland in 2019 288 Balkans Eastern Europe Edit In these areas child and forced marriages are associated with the Roma community and with some rural populations However such marriages are illegal in most of the countries from that area In recent years many of those countries have taken steps in order to curb these practices including equalizing the marriageable age of both sexes e g Romania in 2007 Ukraine in 2012 Therefore most of those marriages are informal unions without legal recognition and often arranged from very young ages Such practices are common in Serbia 289 Bulgaria and Romania 290 291 in these countries the marriageable age is 18 and can only be lowered to 16 in special circumstances with judicial approval 292 293 294 A 2003 case involving the daughter of an informal gypsy king of the area has made international news 295 Belgium Edit The Washington Post reported in April 2016 that 17 child brides arrived in Belgium in 2015 and a further 7 so far in 2016 The same report added that Between 2010 and 2013 the police registered at least 56 complaints about a forced marriage 296 Germany Edit In 2016 there were 1475 underage foreigners were registered in Germany of which 1100 were girls Syrians represented 664 Afghans 157 and Iraqis 100 In July 2016 361 foreign children under 14 were registered as married 297 Netherlands Edit The Dutch government s National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children wrote that between September 2015 and January 2016 around 60 child brides entered the Netherlands 298 At least one was 14 years old 299 300 The Washington Post reported that asylum centres in the Netherlands were housing 20 child brides between ages 13 and 15 in 2015 301 Russia Edit The common marriageable age established by the Family Code of Russia is 18 years old Marriages of persons at age from 16 to 18 years allowed only with good reasons and by local municipal authority permission Marriage before 16 years old may be allowed by federal subject of Russia law as an exception just in special circumstances 302 By 2016 a minimum age for marriage in special circumstances had been established at 14 years in Adygea 303 Kaluga Oblast 304 Magadan Oblast 305 Moscow Oblast 306 Nizhny Novgorod Oblast 307 Novgorod Oblast 308 Oryol Oblast 309 Sakhalin Oblast 310 Tambov Oblast 311 Tatarstan 312 Vologda Oblast 313 or to 15 years in Murmansk Oblast 314 and Ryazan Oblast 315 Others subjects of Russia also can have marriageable age laws Abatement of marriageable age is an ultimate measure acceptable in cases of life threat pregnancy and childbirth 303 314 United Kingdom Edit The marriageable age in both England and Wales is 18 with no exemptions since 1 May 2022 16 with consent of both parents or guardians plus also a magistrate approval required within Northern Ireland only 316 317 although in Scotland 318 no parental consent is required over 16 319 Scotland and Andorra are the only European jurisdictions where 16 year olds can marry as a right i e without parental or court approval see Marriageable age Europe In the UK girls as young as 12 have been smuggled in to be brides of men in the Muslim community according to a 2004 report in The Guardian Girls trying to escape this child marriage can face death because this breaks the honor code of her husband and both families 320 As with the United States underage cohabitation is observed in the United Kingdom According to a 2005 study 4 1 of all girls in the 15 19 age group in the UK were cohabiting living in an informal union while 8 9 of all girls in that age group admitted to having been in a cohabitation relation child marriage per UNICEF definition 4 before the age of 18 Over 4 of all underage girls in the UK were teenage mothers 8 In July 2014 the United Kingdom hosted its first global Girl Summit the goal of the Summit was to increase efforts to end child early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation within a generation 321 Oceania Edit The Marquesas Islands have been noted for their sexual culture Many sexual activities seen as taboo in Western cultures are viewed appropriate by the native culture One of these differences is that children are introduced and educated to sex at a very young age Contact with Western societies has changed many of these customs so research into their pre Western social history has to be done by reading antique writings Children slept in the same room as their parents and were able to witness their parents while they had sex Intercourse simulation became real penetration as soon as boys were physically able Adults found simulation of sex by children to be funny As children approached 11 attitudes shifted toward girls clarification needed When a child reaches adulthood they are educated on sexual techniques by a much older adult Yuri Lisyansky in his memoirs 322 reports that The next day as soon as it was light we were surrounded by a still greater multitude of these people There were now a hundred females at least and they practised all the arts of lewd expression and gesture to gain admission on board It was with difficulty I could get my crew to obey the orders I had given on this subject Amongst these females were some not more than ten years of age But youth it seems is here no test of innocence these infants as I may call them rivalled their mothers in the wantonness of their motions and the arts of allurement Adam Johann von Krusenstern in his book 323 about the same expedition as Yuri s reports that a father brought a 10 to 12 year old girl on his ship and she had sex with the crew According to the book 324 of Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu and Etienne Marchand eight year old girls had sex and other unnatural acts in public 325 326 327 328 329 Consequences Edit Birth rates per 1 000 women aged 15 19 years worldwide Child marriage has lasting consequences on girls that last well beyond adolescence 64 330 Women married in their teens or earlier struggle with the health effects of pregnancy at a young age and often with little spacing between children 91 Early marriages followed by teen pregnancy also significantly increase birth complications and social isolation In poor countries early pregnancy limits or can even eliminate a woman s education options affecting her economic independence Girls in child marriages are more likely to suffer from domestic violence child sexual abuse and marital rape 64 331 Health Edit Child marriage threatens the health and life of girls 332 Complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the main cause of death among adolescent girls below age 19 in developing countries Girls aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely to die in childbirth as fully grown women in their 20s and girls under the age of 15 are five to seven times more likely to die during childbirth 73 These consequences are due largely to girls physical immaturity wherefore the pelvis and birth canal are not fully developed Teen pregnancy particularly below age 15 increases risk of developing obstetric fistula since their smaller pelvises make them prone to obstructed labor 73 Girls who give birth before the age of 15 have an 88 risk of developing fistula 73 and those between 18 and 15 have a 25 chance Fistula leaves its victims with urine or fecal incontinence that causes lifelong complications with infection and pain 333 Unless surgically repaired obstetric fistulas can cause years of permanent disability shame to mothers and can result in being shunned by the community 6 334 Married girls also have a higher risk of sexually transmitted infections cervical cancer and malaria than non married peers or girls who marry in their 20s 73 Child marriage also threatens the lives of offspring Mothers under the age of 18 years have 35 to 55 increased risk of delivering pre term or having a low birth weight baby than a mother who is 19 or 20 years old In addition infant mortality rates are 60 higher when the mother is under 18 years old Infants born to child mothers tend to have weaker immune systems and face a heightened risk of malnutrition 6 Prevalence of child marriage may also be associated with higher rates of population growth more cases of children left orphaned and the accelerated spread of disease which for many translate into prolonged poverty 224 Illiteracy and poverty Edit Child marriage often ends a girl s education particularly in impoverished countries where child marriages are common 335 In addition uneducated girls are more at risk for child marriage Girls who have only a primary education are twice as likely to marry before age 18 than those with a secondary or higher education and girls with no education are three times more likely to marry before age 18 than those with a secondary education 70 Early marriage impedes a young girl s ability to continue with her education as most drop out of school following marriage 336 to focus their attention on domestic duties and having or raising children 337 Girls may be taken out of school years before they are married due to family or community beliefs that allocating resources for girls education is unnecessary given that her primary roles will be that of wife and mother 96 Without education girls and adult women have fewer opportunities to earn an income and financially provide for themselves and their children This makes girls more vulnerable to persistent poverty if their spouses die abandon them or divorce them 64 Given that girls in child marriages are often significantly younger than their husbands they become widowed earlier in life and may face associated economic and social challenges for a greater portion of their life than women who marry later 96 Domestic violence Edit Married teenage girls with low levels of education suffer greater risk of social isolation and domestic violence than more educated women who marry as adults 73 338 Following marriage girls frequently relocate to their husband s home and take on the domestic role of being a wife which often involves relocating to another village or area This transition may result in a young girl dropping out of school moving away from her family and friends and a loss of the social support that she once had 6 A husband s family may also have higher expectations for the girl s submissiveness to her husband and his family because of her youth 91 This sense of isolation from a support system can have severe mental health implications including depression Large age gaps between the child and her spouse makes her more vulnerable to domestic violence and marital rape 339 Girls who marry as children face severe and life threatening marital violence at higher rates 340 Husbands in child marriages are often more than ten years older than their wives This can increase the power and control a husband has over his wife and contribute to prevalence of spousal violence 96 Early marriage places young girls in a vulnerable situation of being completely dependent on her husband Domestic and sexual violence from their husbands has lifelong devastating mental health consequences for young girls because they are at a formative stage of psychological development 64 These mental health consequences of spousal violence can include depression and suicidal thoughts 91 Child brides particularly in situations such as vani also face social isolation emotional abuse and discrimination in the homes of their husbands and in laws Women s rights Edit The United Nations through a series of conventions has declared child marriage a violation of human rights The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination of Women CEDAW the Committee on the Rights of the Child CRC and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights form the international standard against child marriage 70 Child marriages impact violates a range of women s interconnected rights such as equality on grounds of sex and age to receive the highest attainable standard of health to be free from slavery access to education freedom of movement freedom from violence reproductive rights and the right to consensual marriage 64 341 342 The consequence of these violations impact woman her children and the broader society how Development Edit High rates of child marriage negatively impact countries economic development because of early marriages impact on girls education and labor market participation 336 Some researchers and activists note that high rates of child marriage prevent significant progress toward each of the eight Millennium Development Goals and global efforts to reduce poverty due to its effects on educational attainment economic and political participation and health 336 A UNICEF Nepal issued report noted that child marriage impacts Nepal s development due to loss of productivity poverty and health effects Using Nepal Multi Indicator Survey data its researchers estimate that all girls delaying marriage until age 20 and after would increase cash flow among Nepali women in an amount equal to 3 87 of the country s GDP 242 Their estimates considered decreased education and employment among girls in child marriages in addition to low rates of education and high rates of poverty among children from child marriages International initiatives to prevent child marriage EditIn December 2011 a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly A RES 66 170 designated 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child 343 On 11 October 2012 the first International Day of the Girl Child was held the theme of which was ending child marriage 343 In 2013 the first United Nations Human Rights Council resolution against child early and forced marriages was adopted it recognizes child marriage as a human rights violation and pledges to eliminate the practice as part of the U N s post 2015 global development agenda 344 345 346 In 2014 the UN s Commission on the Status of Women issued a document in which they agreed among other things to eliminate child marriage 347 The World Health Organization recommends increased educational attainment among girls increased enforcement structures for existing minimum marriage age laws and informing parents in practicing communities of the risks associated as primary methods to prevent child marriages 348 Programs to prevent child marriage have taken several different approaches Various initiatives have aimed to empower young girls educate parents on the associated risks change community perceptions support girls education and provide economic opportunities for girls and their families through means other than marriage A survey of a variety of prevention programs found that initiatives were most effect when they combined efforts to address financial constraints education and limited employment of women 349 Girls in families participating in an unconditional cash transfer program in Malawi aimed at incentivizing girls education married and had children later than their peers who had not participated in the program The program s effects on rates of child marriage were greater for unconditional cast transfer programs than those with conditions Evaluators believe this demonstrated that the economic needs of the family heavily influenced the appeal of child marriage in this community Therefore reducing financial pressures on the family decreased the economic motivations to marry daughters off at a young age 349 The Haryana state government in India operated a program in which poor families were given a financial incentive if they kept their daughters in school and unmarried until age 18 Girls in families who were eligible for the program were less likely to be married before age 18 than their peers 349 A similar program was operated in 2004 by the Population Council and the regional government in Ethiopia s rural Amhara Region Families received cash if their daughters remained in school and unmarried during the two years of the program They also instituted mentorship programs livelihood training community conversations about girls education and child marriage and gave school supplies for girls After the two year program girls in families eligible for the program were three times more likely to be in school and one tenth as likely to be married compared to their peers 349 In the other free program the Global Campaign for the Prevention of Child Marriage GCPCM has been launched in March 2019 and the primary goal of this Campaign is raising awareness and illuminating people s minds to address child marriage in the world 350 351 Other programs have addressed child marriage less directly through a variety of programming related to girls empowerment education sexual and reproductive health financial literacy life skills communication skills and community mobilization 352 In 2018 UN Women announced that Jaha Dukureh would serve as Goodwill Ambassador in Africa to help organize to prevent child marriage 353 Tipping point analysis Edit Researchers at the International Center for Research on Women found that in some communities rates of child marriage increase significantly when girls are a particular age This tipping point or age at which rates of marriage increase dramatically may occur years before the median age of marriage Therefore the researchers argue prevention programs should focus their programming on girls who are pre tipping point age rather than only girls who are married before they reach the median age for marriage 354 Prevalence data EditPrevalence data by country Country Females married lt 18 Year of assessment Article Ref Afghanistan 28 2017 Child marriage in Afghanistan 244 355 Angola 30 2017 Child marriage in Angola 356 Bangladesh 59 2018 Child marriage in Bangladesh 357 Burkina Faso 52 2018 357 Central African Republic 68 2018 357 Chad 67 2017 358 Democratic Republic of the Congo 37 2017 Child marriage in Democratic Republic of the Congo 359 Cameroon 31 2017 Child marriage in Cameroon 360 Republic of the Congo 33 2017 Child marriage in Republic of the Congo 361 Eritrea 41 2018 357 Ethiopia 40 2017 Child marriage in Ethiopia 362 India 27 2015 16 Child marriage in India 363 364 Ivory Coast 27 2017 Child marriage in Ivory Coast 365 Nepal 40 2018 357 Niger 76 2018 357 Nigeria 43 2017 Child marriage in Nigeria 366 Malawi 42 2018 357 Madagascar 41 2018 357 Mali 52 2017 Child marriage in Mali 367 Mauritania 37 2018 357 Mozambique 48 2018 357 Pakistan 18 2018 Child marriage in Pakistan 244 Senegal 31 2017 368 Sierra Leone 39 2018 357 Somalia 45 2017 Child marriage in Somalia 369 South Sudan 52 2017 Child marriage in South Sudan 370 Uganda 40 2018 357 Zimbabwe 32 2017 Child marriage in Zimbabwe 371 Country males married lt 18 372 year assessed Albania 1 2 2018 Angola 6 2016 Armenia 0 4 2016 Benin 4 8 2018 Belize 22 2 2016 Bolivia 5 2 2016 Cote d Ivoire 3 5 2016 Burundi 1 4 2017 Ethiopia 5 2016 Haiti 1 6 2017 India 4 2 2016 Laos 10 8 2017 Nepal 10 3 2016 Nigeria 3 2017 Senegal 0 6 2017 Sierra Leone 6 5 2017 Timor Leste 1 2 2016 Tanzania 3 9 2016 Uganda 5 5 2016See also EditBecause I Am a Girl Child sexuality Arranged marriage Watta satta Karo kari Baad practice Jirga Women related laws in Pakistan Forced marriage Vani custom Forced marriage Jewish views on marriage List of child brides List of child bridegrooms Marriageable age Marriage in Islam Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery Teenage marriage Teenage pregnancy Westermarck effectNotes Edit a b While canon 1083 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law sets the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females 57 c 1083 1 canon 97 defines a person younger than 18 year of age as a minor and subject to parental authority 57 cc 97 1 98 2 The authorization of the local ordinary must precede the celebration of the marriage of a minor if the marriage cannot be recognized or celebrated according to the norm of civil law or if the parents of a minor are unaware or reasonably opposed 57 c 1071 1 2 and 6 Each conference of bishops can establish a higher age for the licit celebration of marriage 57 c 1083 1 2 Canon 1072 requires that pastors discourage marriage before the age at which a person usually enters marriage according to the accepted practices of the region 57 c 1072 Edward N Peters explains that canon 1083 authorized episcopal conferences to recognize the concrete circumstances of marriage in their own territories and to raise the ages for licit marriages within a given nation to more than the minimum age for a valid marriage 58 Other canons that regulate marriage in general also apply for example persons who lack the sufficient use of reason or who suffer from a grave defect of discretion of judgment concerning the essential matrimonial rights and duties mutually to be handed over and accepted are incapable of contracting marriage 57 c 1095 some sources suggest age at marriage as six and some as seven see Denise Spellberg 1996 Politics Gender and the Islamic Past The Legacy of A isha Bint Abi Bakr Columbia University Press ISBN 978 0231079990 pp 39 40 Most sources suggest age at consummation as nine and one that it may have been age 10 See Denise Spellberg 1996 Politics Gender and the Islamic Past The Legacy of A isha Bint Abi Bakr Columbia University Press ISBN 978 0231079990 pp 39 40 The Ahmadiyya minority sect has published Pakistan s Muhammad Ali view that Sahih al Bukhari is unauthentic and argued that Aisha may have been a teenager See Ali Muhammad 1997 Muhammad the Prophet Ahamadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam ISBN 978 0913321072 However Ahmadiyya sect views about Islam and its history are widely disputed by mainstream Islam See Siddiq amp Ahmad 1995 Enforced Apostasy Zaheeruddin v State and the Official Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan Law amp Inequality 14 pp 275 284 See L Ahmed Women and the Advent of Islam Signs Vol 11 No 4 Summer 1986 pp 677 678 Cynthia Gorney Too Young to Wed The secret world of child brides National Geographic June 2011 quote If there were any danger in early marriage Allah would have forbidden it a Yemeni member of parliament named Mohammed Al Hamzi told me in the capital city of Sanaa one day Something that Allah himself did not forbid we cannot forbid Al Hamzi a religious conservative is vigorously opposed to the legislative efforts in Yemen to prohibit marriage for girls below a certain age 17 in a recent version and so far those efforts have met with failure Islam does not permit marital relations before a girl is physically ready he said but the Holy Koran contains no specific age restrictions and so these matters are properly the province of family and religious guidance not national law Besides there is the matter of the Prophet Muhammad s beloved Ayesha nine years old according to the conventional account when the marriage was consummated References Edit Gaston Colleen Murray Misunas Christina Cappa 2019 Child marriage among boys a global overview of available data Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies 14 3 219 228 doi 10 1080 17450128 2019 1566584 Child marriage UNICEF March 2020 Child Marriage icrw org Child Marriage Rationale Historical Views And Consequences WorldAtlas Retrieved 10 September 2017 a b c d e Parsons Jennifer Edmeades Jeffrey Aslihan Kes Petroni Suzanne Sexton Maggie Wodon Quentin 2015 Economic Impacts of Child Marriage A Review of the Literature The Review of Faith amp International Affairs 13 3 12 22 doi 10 1080 15570274 2015 1075757 hdl 10 1080 15570274 2015 1075757 S2CID 146194521 Atkinson MP Korgen KO Trautner MN 2019 Social Problems Sociology in Action SAGE Publications p 238 ISBN 978 1544358642 a b c d e Child marriage UNICEF March 2020 a b c d e f Gaston Colleen Murray Misunas Christina Cappa 2019 Child marriage among boys a global overview of available data Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies 14 3 219 228 doi 10 1080 17450128 2019 1566584 a b c d e f g Nour NM 2009 Child Marriage a silent health and human rights issue Reviews in Obstetrics and Gynecology 2 1 51 56 PMC 2672998 PMID 19399295 a b Marriage and Cohabitation in the United States A Statistical Portrait Based on Cycle 6 2002 of the National Survey of Family Growth PDF US Department of Health and Human Services a b Sharon K Houseknecht and Susan K Lewis Explaining Teen Childbearing and Cohabitation Community Embeddedness and Primary Ties Family Relations Vol 54 No 5 Families and Communities Dec 2005 pp 607 620 a b Child Marriage icrw org a b Eradicating child marriage in Africa FORWARD UK Retrieved 18 February 2015 International technical guidance on sexuality education an evidence informed approach PDF Paris UNESCO 2018 p 13 ISBN 978 92 3 100259 5 Africa Child Brides Die Young AllAfrica a b Marrying Too Young End Child Marriage PDF UNFPA p 23 Early Marriage Child Spouses UNICEF See section on Asia page 4 2001 Southeast Asia s big dilemma what to do about child marriage Plan International Australia 20 August 2013 Archived from the original on 3 October 2013 Retrieved 10 July 2016 IRIN Asia PHILIPPINES Early marriage puts girls at risk Philippines Gender Issues Health amp Nutrition Human Rights The New Humanitarian 26 January 2010 a b c Child Brides Child Marriage What We Know PBS 12 October 2007 Child marriage still 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of such signs the Hanafi school assumes that puberty will occur no later than at eighteen years for males and seventeen years for females a b Saudi Arabia moves to ban child marriage with a new ruling The National 24 December 2019 Retrieved 15 February 2020 Wael Mahdi 1 July 2009 Saudi push to end child marriages The National a b Al Khataf Iman Saudi Arabia Introduces New Regulations for Early Marriage Asharq Al aswat Shulamith Shaha 1983 The Fourth Estate A History of Women in the Middle Ages ISBN 0 415 30851 8 Routledge pages 131 149 UNICEF 2015 A Profile of Child Marriage in Africa a b c Child marriage UNFPA United Nations Population Fund unfpa org Child Marriage PDF UNICEF 2005 Archived from the original PDF on 28 August 2014 Retrieved 12 August 2013 Child marriages declining says Unicef BBC News 6 March 2018 Retrieved 6 March 2018 IRIN Africa NIGER Early marriage from rural custom to urban business Niger Children Economy Education Gender Issues Human Rights The New Humanitarian 16 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Pakistan America Magazine 11 March 2002 a b Power Carla 12 August 2009 Nujood Ali amp Shada Nasser win Women of the Year Fund 2008 Glamour Award Yemen Times archived from the original on 5 April 2011 retrieved 16 February 2010 How Come You Allow Little Girls to Get Married Child Marriage in Yemen Human Rights Watch 2011 pages 15 23 PDF Retrieved 3 March 2018 Yemen s Child Bride Backlash Foreign Policy April 30 2010 Archived from the original on 2 October 2014 Retrieved 3 March 2018 IRIN Middle East YEMEN Deep divisions over child brides Yemen Gender Issues Human Rights The New Humanitarian 28 March 2010 Yemen Human Rights Developments World Report 2001 Human Rights Watch 2001 retrieved 8 April 2010 Daragahi Borzou 11 June 2008 Yemeni bride 10 says I won t Los Angeles Times retrieved 16 February 2010 Mahmoud Assamiee and Nadia Al 25 March 2010 Relative breakthrough in Yemen s early marriage dilemma Yemen Times archived from the original on 8 June 2011 retrieved 8 April 2010 Sadeq Al 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