The Very Real Impact of Climate Change In Driving Child Marriage
By Aradhana Choudhury I Mumkin Staff
In 2017, Gethin Chamberlain published a groundbreaking photo essay that described the emergence of modern-day child brides across Africa, fueled by climate disaster, as posited by the Brides of the Sun reporting project. It reports that young girls with babies in their arms as their peers go to school are the most palpable manifestation of climate change.
Child marriage, that is, marriage before the age of 18, has increased alarmingly worldwide and is a direct impact of climate change. Climate change puts young girls and women at increased risk of physical, sexual, and psychological violence detrimental to their long-term well-being.
How?
Girls married before the age of 15 are 50% more likely to have experienced intimate partner violence than those who married after 18. A more significant age difference between the girls and their husbands increases — the likelihood of intimate partner violence further. Studies on women’s health have documented the long-term adverse health impacts of child marriage, including its effects on maternal mortality. A report by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, ‘A Statistical Analysis of Child Marriage in India,’ observed that girls in the 10 to 14 age group were five times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women aged between 20 to 24 years. Additionally, babies are born malnourished if their mothers were malnourished before or during pregnancy, often when food insecurity and gender inequalities are driven.
As the years' progress, the consequences of climate change have become more extreme and frequent, creating further instability and insecurity among communities directly impacted by it. Fishing communities, small-scale farmers, and herders are among those affected by the increase in droughts, floods, cyclones, and other natural disasters. Moreover, poorer countries with inadequate resources or infrastructure for disaster management are disproportionately affected. This would leave families affected vulnerable to poverty, food and housing insecurity, and without healthcare.
In such situations, child marriage is viewed in a more favourable light, either as a source of income or as a means to reduce the number of children to clothe, feed and educate.
The escalation in child marriage is shaped by gender inequality, the limited resources of the family, and the developmental challenges of the region. Sons are often preferred as the more secure investment with better income opportunities, and daughters may be seen as a burden and thus married off. When families facing climate disasters may be more vulnerable to harassment and abuse, and marrying off their young daughters can be seen as a measure to preserve the family’s honour. Child marriage may also be a way to protect their daughters from sexual violence, especially among displaced communities who often lack security. In other cases, existing practices of dowry (when the family of the bride pays money or goods to the groom’s family), or bride price (when the family of the groom pays their future in-laws at the start of their marriage), can fuel decisions to marry off a child. Particularly, the lack of access to resources among households is a key driving factor. According to the UNFPA, families in the lowest income strata are twice as likely to opt for child marriage than those in the highest income strata. Environmental crises exacerbate these existing inequalities in access to resources, and rising global temperatures could force millions into extreme poverty, most significant in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which are two regions with the most significant rates of child marriage.
Summarily, studies across countries such as Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, that have observed severe environmental crises such as droughts and homes, and interviews with families highlighted the links between the loss of assets and income after such crises and the use of child marriage as a coping strategy.
Similar studies in Bangladesh and Indonesia observed higher rates of child marriage after environmental shocks such as periods of droughts and floods. Disruptions in education and displacement due to natural disasters contribute to the phenomenon. The loss of resources implies a loss of status of a family in the community, and arranging a marriage for a girl before the situation worsens is viewed as an important strategy to maintain that status.
Child marriage and its associated risk is just one phenomenon that emhpaises the gendered impacts of climate change. The negative outcomes faced by communities due to climate change can perpetuate historically entrenched gender roles and women in those roles are likely to be more severely affected by disasters, have increased long-term health impacts, face an increasing burden of unpaid care work, face reduced income, etc. A travesty and severe injustice that is unfortunately all too common is that the communities most adversely affected by climate change are the ones that contribute to it the least. Already marginalised communities, such as through gender schisms are disproportionately affected.
However, the narrative that paints women from the Global South as victims is damaging and exclusionary. Simply banning or condemning the practice of child marriage is ineffective without examining the policies that do not include the perspectives and lived experiences of the women from these regions.
About Aradhana Choudhury
Aradhana is a part of the Mumkin team and an aspiring policymaker. She is currently pursuing her Masters in International Realtions and Development at Science Po Paris and London School of Economics, respectively to gain multiple insights and varied skills.
Aradhana also has keen interest in history and heritage studies.
