Sunday Times 2
UN launches global campaign to abolish child marriages
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The United Nations has launched a global campaign to abolish an anachronistic social practice still prevalent in some communities around the world: child marriages.
“International conventions declare that child marriage is a violation of human rights because it denies girls the right to decide when and with whom to marry,” says a new report released on Thursday by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
The launch also marked the first International Day of the Girl Child – Oct. 11 – as designated by the 193-member General Assembly last year “to recognise girls’ rights and highlight the unique challenges girls face around the world”.
More than 67 million women, 20 to 24 years old in 2010, had been married as girls. Half were in Asia, one-fifth in Africa, the study said. And in the next decade, 14.2 million girls under 18 will be married every year.
"Sweet 16" marriages are a cause of controversy in Malawi. Pic by Claire Ngozo/IPS
If present trends continue, this will rise to an average of 15.1 million girls a year, starting in 2021 until 2030, according to the study titled “Marrying too Young: End Child Marriage”.
UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, who is highly critical of the practice, says he is determined to help abolish child marriages worldwide.
“No social, cultural or religious rationale for child marriage can possibly justify the damage these marriages do to young girls and their potential,” he said. “A girl should have the right to choose whom she marries and when. Since many parents and communities also want the very best for their daughters, we must work together to end child marriage”.
“It is the only course by which we can avert what otherwise is the human tragedy of child marriage,” he said.
Dr. Osotimehin also said child marriage is an appalling violation of human rights and robs girls of their education, health and long-term prospects.
“Marriage for girls can lead to complications of pregnancy and childbirth – the main causes of death among 15-19-year-old girls in developing countries,” he added.
Dr. Osotimehin also expressed concern over the 14-year-old Pakistani school girl who was shot on Wednesday for being an education rights campaigner in her home country.
The campaign to abolish child marriages has strong support from several U.N. agencies, including UN Women, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, and international human rights organisations such as Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage and Human Rights Watch.
Michelle Bachelet, executive director of UN Women, told IPS that UN Women welcomes the UNFPA report on child marriage.
“The report should be a wake-up call to all of us that we need to take strong action to end child marriage,” she said.
She said no girl should be robbed of her childhood, her education and health, and her aspirations.
In a statement released on Thursday, UNICEF said that in India, one of the countries with the largest number of girls being married before their 18th birthday, child marriage has declined nationally and in nearly all states from 54 per cent in 1992-1993 to 43 per cent in 2007-2008, but the pace of change is slow.
Experiences in contexts as diverse as Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Ethiopia, India, Niger, Senegal and Somalia show how combining legal measures with support to communities, providing viable alternatives – especially schooling – and enabling communities to discuss and reach the explicit, collective decision to end child marriage yield positive results, UNICEF said.
In a report released on Thursday, Human Rights Watch said it has documented human rights violations against married girls and boys in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iraq, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, South Sudan, and Yemen.
Asked it was fair – or unfair — to say that most child marriages take place in Muslim countries, Liesl Gerntholtz, director of the women’s right’s division at Human Rights Watch, told IPS, “It is very unfair to say this, as child marriage happens in many different communities, including Christian ones.”
To give a few examples, she said, in Burkino Faso, 48 per cent of girls now between the ages of 20 and 24 were married before they reached 18; in Cameroon, the figure is 36 per cent; in the Central African Republic it is 61 per cent; and in the Democratic Republic of Congo is 39 per cent.
“These are UNICEF figures, so they are as reliable as it is possible for them to be,” she said. Meanwhile, the UNFPA announced it will invest an additional 20 million dollars over the next five years to reach “the most marginalised adolescent girls in 12 countries with high rates of child marriage”. The countries include Guatemala, India, Niger and Zambia.
The New York-based Ford Foundation also pitched in with a 25-million-dollar commitment to help end child marriages worldwide.
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