Early marriage:

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• Early marriage
• An international perspective

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Concepts

• Arranged marriages
• Bridal abduction
• Forced marriages
• Early marriage
• Notion of AGE and CONSENT

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Examples of early marriage

• Rajasthan, India To facilitate the passing on of
  wealth and property within the family
• Niger to follow tradition, reinforce ties among
  or between communities, and protect girls from
  out-of-wedlock pregnancy
• Bangladesh Free parents from economic burden,
  protect sexual purity, fulfill role as sexual and
  domestic servant.
• Albania Families in rural areas encourage their
  daughters to marry early before potential
  husbands migrate to cities in search of work
• Ethiopia In some regions, 40 of girls are
  married before 15, in some cases following
  abduction and rape to avoid a bride price.

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Explanations

• Maximizing fertility
• Economic survival strategy
• Protecting girls
• To excuse a rape
• Contemporary pressures

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Early marriage and human rights

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
  men and women of full age full and free
  consent.
• Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
  Discrimination against Women (1979) betrothal
  and the marriage of a child shall have no legal
  effect specify legal age of marriage
• Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
  Best interests, rights to express his or her
  views freely, protection from exploitation
  non-discrimination..
• African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the
  Child (1999)

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• Child marriage and the betrothal of girls and
• boys shall be prohibited and effective action,
• including legislation, shall be taken to specify
  the
• minimum age of marriage to be 18 years and make
• registration of all marriages in an official
  registry
• compulsory
• African Charter for the Rights and Welfare of the
  Child

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Considerations for national legislation

• Often early marriage may be prohibited in
  existing civil or common law, but condoned in
  customary or religious laws and practice
• National laws often discriminatory, setting a
  lower minimum age for girls
• South African Recognition of Customary Marriages
  Act sets an appropriate minimum age and requires
  registration.
• Allows children under the minimum age to be
  married with the permission of their parents or a
  court

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Impact

• Psychosocial harm
• Risks of early pregnancy and childbirth
• HIV risks
• Denial of education
• Violence and abandonment

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Taking action some examples

• Uganda Teenage Health Information Service
• Bangladesh Secondary School Scholarships for
  girls
• Egypt New Horizons Nonformal Education
  Programme
• Pakistan Involving Boys
• India Grants to postpone marriage
• Burkina Faso Refuge for girls
• Senegal Community training to address FGM/C

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Lessons from tackling Female Genital
Mutilation/Cutting

• FGM/C as a self-reinforcing social convention
• In communities that inter-marry, a single
  families choice of whether or not to continue the
  tradition is conditioned by the choice of others.
• Through the TOSTAN Community Empowerment
  Programme about 3,800 villages in Senegal out of
  the 5,000 that practice FGM/C have publicly
  announced their abandonment of the practice

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Six key elements for change

• A non-coercive and non-judgmental approach whose
  primary focus is the fulfillment of human rights
• An awareness on the part of a community of the
  harm caused by the practice.
• The decision to abandon the practice as a
  collective choice of a group that intramarries or
  is closely connected in other ways
• An explicit, public affirmation on the part of
  communities of their collective commitment
• A process of organized diffusion to ensure that
  the decision to abandon FGM/C spreads rapidly
  from one community to another and is sustained
• An environment that enables and supports change
  (Government commitment, civil society
  involvement, support in media)

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Taking action against early marriage

• Actions should be addressed at those already
  married, as well as preventive actions aimed at
  wider society.
• - Sex education and reproductive health services
• - Education for girls
• Support for girls in marriage and those that
  escape
• Livelihood and life-skills for girls
• Birth and marriage registration (including record
  of consent)
• Advocacy and awareness raising

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Some suggestions for advocacy

• Campaign to ensure implementation of legal age of
  marriage
• Promote an effective system of registration of
  births and marriages
• Set up small scale studies into the implications
  of early marriage
• Raise awareness via social mobilisation involving
  womens networks, opinion leaders, politicians
  and community leaders (International Womens Day,
  16 days of Activism
• Work with media to emphasize womens rights,
  equality, access to education, freedom from
  exploitation and discrimination
• Work with men to promote attitudinal change.
• Importance of working at local level.

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Stephen BlightChief, Child ProtectionUNICEF
South Africasblight_at_unicef.org082 561 1426

• Thank you