Child Marriage

​The formal marriage or informal union before the age of 18

This refers to both the marriage between two individuals below the age of 18, as well as the union between a child and an adult. Child marriage negatively impacts thousands of girls and boys around the world, but disproportionately affects girls more than boys.

Negative Impact

Child marriage adversely affects its victims, due to the lack of opportunities such as higher education and economic independence, as well as the lack of necessities such as access to healthcare and personal freedom. ​

Physical Ramifications

Studies have shown that when girls are married at an early age, they are more likely to engage in sexual activity and become pregnant at a young age, when girls' bodies are still in the process of developing. Moreover, girls often are unaware about their rights or their sexual and reproductive health at this time.

These factors lead to risks such as:
  • ​Facing intimate partner violence and sexual abuse from partners (as opposed to those who marry later)
  • ​Contracting sexually-transmitted diseases such as HIV due to lack of contraception
  • ​Higher risks of death at childbirth because of the disproportionate amount of physical stress placed on an undeveloped body
  • Pregnancy-related injuries such as obstetric fistula
  • Children with low birth weight, insufficient nutrition and anemia
  • Long-term health issues such as cervical cancer​​

​Emotional Ramifications

  • ​​Lack of freedom and autonomy after marriage
  • ​Girls face intense social pressure to prove their fertility and produce children
  • ​Hard to assert their wishes (especially with older husbands)—especially with wishes concerning safe sexual practices and family planning methods
  • ​Results in frequent, early, stressful pregnancies​

​Social Ramifications

  • ​​Girls are deprived of the opportunity to go to school and learn. If they do, this is often cut short by their marriage, and new responsibilities as a mother.
  • ​They are unable to sustain themselves and are discouraged from working and earning their living
  • ​They are often isolated and kept only to reproduce children, with a small to non-existent social life
  • ​Girls are made dependant on their husband's family for food and shelter, their only purpose giving birth to younger generation

Current Protections against child marriage

Though laws change from country to country, 
  • ​Child marriage is classified a human rights violation by the United Nations
  • ​Most countries (96%) have laws that set minimum age requirements for marriage. The only ones that possess no limitations (as of 2016) are Equatorial Guinea, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Gambia, South Sudan and Yemen.