WASHINGTON, D.C.—Leaders from UNFPA, the Population Council, the Government of Senegal and the International Center for Research on Women met today to address the neglected issue of child marriage. Child marriage violates the human rights of millions of girls by threatening their health, restricting their education and limiting their social, economic and political growth.

Most nations have declared 18 as the legal minimum age for marriage. Yet, in the next decade, more than 100 million girls worldwide will marry before their 18th birthday. Some will be as young as 8 or 9 and many will marry against their will.

“Married adolescents have been largely ignored in the development and health agenda because of the perception that their married status ensures them a safe passage to adulthood,” said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Ms. Obaid spoke at a special session of the Global Health Council’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. The theme of the conference was “Youth and Health: Generation on the Edge.” Other panellists included Aminata Diallo, Minister of Health, Senegal; Geeta Rao Gupta, President, International Center for Research on Women; Judith Bruce, Director, Gender, Family and Development, Population Council; and, Kakenya Ntaiya, a Kenyan woman who fought hard to delay marriage and continue her education.

“UNFPA seeks to reposition the concern about adolescent girls from a relatively narrow one, focused on their fertility and health, to one that emphasizes the capacities and life skills they need to negotiate their lives,” said Ms. Obaid. “Income-generating work can transform the lives of married adolescents by providing them with a degree of autonomy, mobility and freedom from traditional gender roles.

The Executive Director called for greater action to discourage child marriage, such as:

• Highlighting the increased risk of HIV infection for young girls who marry much older men, especially in communities with high prevalence of HIV/AIDS;
• Fostering national and community dialogue over the human dignity and human rights of all persons, and the security and health threats entailed in forced or early marriage of girls;
• Helping girls to complete their secondary education and working to address the root causes of early marriage, such as poverty and discrimination against girls;
• Designing safe, appropriate and effective educational skill-building, and livelihood opportunities for unmarried girls that may assist them in deferring marriage by raising their literacy, increasing their income generation and overall economic and social well-being.

Child marriage remains a deeply entrenched custom in many countries. Parents want to secure their daughters’ future both socially and financially, and ties between families and villages are often strengthened with arranged marriages.

At the meeting, UNFPA premiered a new video with testimonies of married girls, entitled ‘Too Brief a Child: Voices of Married Adolescents’ (media copies available). As one girl from Burkina Faso explains: “I was promised to a man before I was 10. It was a traditional wedding. When the time came, I was just handed over to my husband’s family and when I saw him I realized he was older than my daddy.”

Ms. Obaid called for greater action to protect the rights of married girls and stressed that child marriage brought great health risks for young girls. Pregnancy is a leading cause of death and disability for young women aged 15 to 19. Married adolescent girls are at particular risk of HIV infection since they are often married to much older men with more sexual experience and are generally unable to negotiate condom use. Studies from Kenya and Zambia show that teenage brides are contracting HIV at a faster rate than their sexually active unmarried counterparts. An estimated 7.3 million young women are living with HIV/AIDS, compared to 4.5 million young men and nearly two thirds of newly infected youth aged 15 to 19 in sub-Saharan Africa are female.

The stakes are high. The largest generation of adolescents in world history is now making the transition from childhood to adulthood: 1.2 billion people are between the ages of 10 and 19. The health and well-being of young girls today will have a major impact on the overall social and economic health of our world tomorrow.

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UNFPA is the world's largest multilateral source of population assistance. Since it became operational in 1969, it has provided help to developing countries, at their request, to meet reproductive health needs and support development efforts.

Contact Information:

Micol Zarb
Tel.: +1 212 297 5042
Email: zarb@unfpa.org