Not Just Women's Rights

There are times when the idea of women's rights crosses over into plain old human rights. The subject of child marriage is one of these ideas. Child marriage is defined as a marriage, normally forced, between two people with at least one of them being under the age of 18. It is considered a world wide problem. Although it does affect boys and girls, it is mostly girls who are married underage and that makes it a women's rights issue.

Over 700 million women alive right now were married as children. It normally takes place in developing countries in places like Africa, South America and East Asia. In fact, 1 in ever 3 girls in these developing countries will be married before 18 and 1 in 9 will be married before 15. As of 2012, Niger leads the child marriage numbers with 76% of it's females being subject to it. By the end of the decade as many as 142 million girls will be married as children. 

This phenomenon takes place because of four factors. The first is tradition. Child marriage has been taking place for generations on generations. Swaying from the culture norm could be scrutiny and exclusion in the community. Another factor is gender roles. In many cultures that this takes place in, girls are seen as less than their boy counterparts. They are valued at less, which means they can be seen as a burden. To get rid of this burden, parents may marry their daughter off young. The third factor is poverty. Having little to no money is a big incentive to marry a daughter off. It would give her family one less mouth to feed and lessen the expenses. Also, families could be given a dowry for the marriage to help with their financial state. The last factor is security. It is unlike all of the others because the family does it to help their child instead of themselves. With marrying their child off, they can somewhat ensure that she will no longer be at risk for physical or sexual abuse. Many of these parents can have false hope for this, but it is all they have.    

Child marriage becomes a feminism problem along with a human rights problem because it hinders the development of women. Marrying this young can have an impact of the girl's health, education, safety, and poverty. When it comes to health, a leading causes of death among 15-19 year olds are pregnancy complications and birth. In fact, girls under 15 are five times more likely to die during child birth than woman aged 20-25. Being married as a child also increases their chances of contracting HIV and, later, AIDS. Child marriage ends any opportunity for an education. These opportunities are already low in developing countries, but being married young makes them even smaller.Many married girls have little to no formal education and can be illiterate. A lack of education leads to poverty, because they cannot bring in any sort of income or have any valuable skills. In the event that the marriage does end, the girl will not be able to support herself or her family. Another problem with child marriage is domestic violence. Being forced into a marriage puts girls at a much higher risk for sexual and physical abuse. They are likely to be beaten and forced into sexual intercourse. 

Programs like Unicef and GirlsNotBrides are working to end this world wide culture norm. They are trying to do this through education, empowerment, and attempting to change tradition. Bringing men into the conversation has helped to keep the movement running. Another way to stop the marriage is to employ laws in this developing countries, which is being worked on in many. 

Ending child marriage would be just another step towards closing the world wide gender gap. It would increase the amount of women being educated and create a healthier environment for everyone to live in.

       

*Infographic on the impacts of child marriage by GirlsNotBrides

Here is a ling to a video emphasizing the impacts of child marriage.