6 March 2018
Ending child marriage
In the last decade, 25 million child marriages have been prevented due to a significant decline in the practice.
The proportion of women who were married as children decreased by 15 per cent in the last decade, according to new UNICEF estimates published on 6 March 2018. Increasing rates of girls’ education, proactive government investments in adolescent girls, and strong public messaging around the illegality of child marriage and the harm it causes are among the reasons for the shift.
South Asia has witnessed the largest decline in child marriage worldwide, largely due to progress in India. In the village of Madhwa in India’s Jharkhand state, where 6 out of 10 girls are married before age 18, residents watch folk artists perform a play on child marriage and its negative impact.
Improving access to education is key to reducing child marriage. Girls in the village of Berhabad in Jharkhand state are provided free transport from their homes to school. “Earlier we had to form groups and go to school, and return as boys and men would trouble us on the way”, says one student.
The global burden of child marriage has shifted from South Asia to sub-Saharan Africa, where rates of progress need to be scaled up dramatically to offset population growth. A bride and groom register their marriage in Hawassa, Ethiopia.
However progress is possible: in Ethiopia, once among the top five countries for child marriage in sub-Saharan Africa, the prevalence has dropped by a third in the last 10 years. In the Amhara region of Ethiopia, Siraden Deju, 18, is married but does not yet live with her husband.
“My step-mother wanted to marry me off to a man when I was 13. I refused since I was still a little girl and I wanted to study” says Florence, 14, who is currently in her final year of primary school in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Education empowers girls to change the world.
Learn more about child marriage around the world.
Read more about five ways you can help end violence against girls.
