Breaking the Chains: Confronting Child Marriage
1st October, 2025: The lower house of the parliament in Somalia voted overwhelmingly in favour of ratifying the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, with one of the provisions including prohibition of marriage under 18 years of age. Overnight, massive countrywide protests began. A viral video now shows a 73 year old man crying on camera over the potential implementation of the law. The public backlash led to the provision being overturned in less than a day, a move taken to appease religious extremists. They say that adulthood and marriage eligibility are determined by religious maturity (often as young as 10). The clarification provided by the government said Islamic law and cultural norms take precedence over the Charter.
This response isn’t just an isolated incident. Child marriage is a human rights violation that disproportionately affects girls all over the world. Global prevalence rates are as high as 19%, where one girl child under the age of 18 years is married off every THREE SECONDS. At the current rates of progress, it is estimated to take more than 300 years to completely eliminate child marriage from the world map. India is home to the largest number of child brides, a number as high as 222.4 million. Sub-Saharan Africa leads the charts with 30.8% of all marriages involving underage children. And if you think you are better off living in a first-world country, consider this: 34 states in the United States legally permit marriage under 18 years of age. California, New Mexico, and Oklahoma have no statutory minimum age for marriage at all.
These figures are as ghastly as they are relevant. These horrors are driven by a complex web of interrelated factors operating at individual, familial, community and societal levels. Factors that feed into this centuries-old practice in modern times:
POVERTY: Girls are sold into wedlock like livestock to ease the economic burden on the families. Marrying off these girls is seen as an easy fix for addressing debts, coping with food shortages and to reduce household costs. These numbers rise during crises and disasters, when there is a shortage of resources indicating that daughters are seen as expendable.
FAMILIAL CUSTOMS: Practices like dowry and bride price paid by bride’s and groom’s families respectively, further incentivise child marriage. This goes on to show that these marriages are nothing more than glamorized business deals, where girls are always dealt the short end of the stick.
DEEP-SEATED PATRIARCHY: The value of girls as per societal norms is limited to that of a homemaker and caregiver. Young girls rarely have any agency over decisions about their own lives. They are often seen as a burden to shed off rather than a family member to nurture and care for.
RELIGIOUS ASPECT: Many cultures around the world place unwarranted emphasis on a girl’s purity and virginity. Premarital sex and out-of-wedlock pregnancy are seen as sins and blemishes on a family’s honour. And what do we do to prevent this? Marry off our daughters as early as possible, of course.
WEAK LEGAL PROVISIONS: Clearly defined statutes are rarely implemented and poorly enforced. Perpetrators receive little to no repercussions in many countries. In countries like India, where the legal age for marriage is 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys, the practice of child marriage still flourishes. For every 4320 girls that got married off young, only 3 cases were reported in a day.
Now picture a harrowing scene: a small, 12 year old girl, heavily pregnant, trailing behind a 50-something year old man. Her face dull, showing no signs of the childlike joy and innocence she is entitled to. Resigned to her fate and the cruelty of the world she was born into. Forced to carry a baby when she herself is one. And she would give birth not to daughters but to future victims of the system. This is the ground reality in many parts of the world.
And this doesn’t stop here. Children forced into marriages face a lot more. Most of the girls drop out of schools and receive no further education, forsaking them to a lifetime of subservience and subjugation. Early pregnancy increases the rates of morbidity and mortality among adolescent children. Young girls get exposed to life-threatening infections like HIV and the mental impact on the children is enormous. Financial dependence on the spouse ensures the perpetuation of domestic violence and abuse.
This is not just a feminist issue but also a profound human rights, public health, and socioeconomic challenge. Raising community awareness is the first step to overcome this. Starting campaigns and initiating dialogues can go a long way. Global protests and outcry for criminalisation of child marriage and dowry are the need of the hour. Legal frameworks need to be strengthened and strictly implemented. Legal guidance, healthcare services, and psychiatric counselling need to be made easily accessible and affordable to at-risk children. Recent challenges such as the COVID 19 pandemic threaten to reverse progress, and highlights a continued urgent need for action.
These girls need their stories to be heard, their voices amplified. This heinous practice needs to be uprooted once and for all. Because no woman is free until every woman is free.
Sources:
https://childmarriagedata.org/country-profiles/india/
https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-marriage/#data
https://19thnews.org/2023/07/explaining-child-marriage-laws-united-states/
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