Child marriage
Child marriage is any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years old.
Several associations all directly or indirectly forbid the degrading and mistreating of girls inherent in child marriage.
Nevertheless, child marriage is common in many parts of the world, claiming millions of victims annually and hundreds of thounsands of injuries or deaths resulting from abuse or complications from pregnancy and childbirth.7
This phenomene has many causes :(cultural, social, economic and religious). In many cases, a mixture of these causes results in the imprisonment of children in marriages without their consent.
On one hand, we have povrety. Poor parents see that marrying their children in such a young age is the right option, either to settle debts or to make money. But, this irresponsible act prevents them from receiving the proper education to take part in the workforce later.
On the other hand, protecting the girl's sexuality. In certain cultures, marrying a girl young persumes that the girl's family's honor will be protected by ensuring that she gets married as a virgin. But, what results is the complete opposite. They rob the girl of her honor and dignity and take control of her.
Also, child marriage is a product of cultures that devalues women and girls and dicriminate against them. The discrimination, according to a UNICEF report, manifests itself in the form of domestic violence, marital rape, deprivation of food, lack of access to information,education, healthcare and general impediments to mobility.
In addition, inadequate laws are a main cause aswell. Many countries such as Pakistan have laws against child marriage. The laws are not enforced. In Afghanistan, a new law was written into the country's code enabling Shiite or Hazara communities to impose their own form of family law-including permitting chilld marriage.
Moreover, alot of families tend to marry their children in order of traffiking. Poor families are tempted to sell their girls not just into marriage, but into prostitution, as the transaction enables large sums of money to change hands.
Tons of individual rights are denied by child marriage. Rights undermined or lost by children forced to marry early are:
The right to an education, the right to be protected from physical and mental violence, injury or abuse, including sexual abuse, rape ad sexual exploitation, the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainble standard of health, the right to rest and leisure, and to participate freely in cultural life, the right to not be separated from parents against the child's will, the right to protection against all fors of exploitation affecting any aspect of the child's welfare, the right to eventual employment
To sum up,we have to act about it! Globally, the rates of child marriage are slowly declining but progress isn't happening fast enough.
More than 700 million women and over 150 million men , already suffer the consequences of child marriage.
If there is no reduction in child marriage, the global number of women married as children will reach 1.2 billion by 2050, with devastating consequences for the whole world.
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