Child Marriage: A Worldwide Problem
Think back to your childhood and teenage years. When you were little, most of your choices were probably made for you. If you were fortunate enough to have a loving family, you were cared for and watched over. Hopefully, you were kept from danger and protected from those who would do you harm. In your teenage years, though, you might have wanted more freedom—freedom to go where you wanted, when you wanted, with whom you wanted. Maybe you even dated someone your parents weren’t that thrilled with. If you got married, it’s almost certain that you chose your spouse and married him or her because you loved that person.
Imagine a different scenario, though. What if you grew up in a family or in a culture where your spouse was picked for you, and you had no say in it? Or even worse, what if you had to get married before you were even an adult, maybe at seventeen, or fifteen, or even ten years old? Child marriage might seem like something out of the dark ages, but it isn’t. It happens in countries all over the world, including in western Europe, the UK, and right here in the United States.
My first exposure to the concept of “child marriage” was from an article in the June 2011 issue of National Geographic written by Cynthia Gorney and titled “Too Young To Wed.” In the article, the author documents the wedding of three related girls, ages five, thirteen, and fifteen, in northern India. These girls were being wed to older boys, and while they would continue living with their parents until they were older, they certainly weren’t given a choice. Gorney describes standing by helplessly during the ceremony:
The outsider’s impulse toward child bride rescue scenarios can be overwhelming: Snatch up the girl, punch out the nearby adults, and run. Just make it stop. Above my desk, I have taped to the wall a photograph of Rajani on her wedding night. In the picture it’s dusk, six hours before the marriage ceremony, and her face is turned toward the camera, her eyes wide and untroubled, with the beginnings of a smile. I remember my own rescue fantasies roiling that night—not solely for Rajani, whom I could have slung over my own shoulder and carried away alone, but also for the 13- and the 15-year-old sisters who were being transferred like requisitioned goods, one family to another, because a group of adult males had arranged their futures for them.
I admit that I had the same feelings just reading the article and looking at the accompanying photo essay by Stephanie Sinclair. Child marriage is actually illegal in India, but parents are willing to risk arrest to continue the traditional practice.
Before we delve too much deeper into this subject, it’s important that we clarify some terms. For our purposes, a child marriage involves the marriage of a child (usually a girl, but not always) under the age of eighteen. As we will see later, there may be good reasons to delay marriage even a little longer. A forced marriage involves coercion. There may be a threat of violence, pressure from family members, or appeals to family honor. Honor violence, where the child is actually harmed or killed by family members, may be a result if the child refuses the marriage. Forced marriage may occur for any of several reasons. The AHA Foundation lists the following reasons:
Cultural and religious traditions
Controlling unwanted sexuality, including perceived promiscuity
Eradicating perceived or actual homosexuality, or being transgendered
Controlling unwanted behavior, particularly conduct that is “too Western”
Preventing “unsuitable” relationships, such as those outside a
particular ethnic, cultural, or religious group
Promoting and protecting family status, solidarity, or honor
Securing immigration status for the spouse and family
Enhancing the economic status of the family (i.e. dowry)
Securing care for a disabled family member via the new spouse
Domestic servitude
Paying for a wrong committed by another family member
The common thread in an enforced marriage, though, is that it is always compulsory. Contrary to popular belief, an arranged marriage isn’t necessarily a forced marriage. In some cases, the marriage might be encouraged or the match might even be requested by the boy or girl and arranged by the relatives, but the marriage is not compulsory.
Child marriage has been documented in many countries and in many cultures. According to the organization Girls Not Brides, India has the worst record, with eighteen percent of girls married before they are fifteen, and forty-seven percent married before they are eighteen. Girls are married young in India to decrease the dowry required, to control their sexuality, because of patriarchy, or because of poverty and poor educational opportunities. In Nepal, where ten percent of girls are married before fifteen, the driving factors are similar, and girls are often seen as an economic burden to poor families. In another National Geographic photo essay dated December 2016, author Melody Rowell and photographer Daro Sulakauri document child marriage in Georgia, a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia, where ten percent of girls are married before the legal age of eighteen. According to the authors:
UNICEF calls child marriage “a fundamental violation of human rights,” and Georgia has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Europe. It’s a tradition that goes back centuries and isn’t confined to one region or religion. And while the reasons for the marriages differ from town to town and group to group, there are a few commonalities. The grooms are almost always older, have finished school, and are of legal age. Typically, it’s the groom’s mother who begins the matchmaking process, but Sulakauri has encountered couples who met through friends, in school, or online. And though the girls aren’t necessarily forced into the marriages, cultural pressure is extremely strong.
Things are even worse on the African continent. In the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn document the sometimes horrific lives that young girls endure after being married young. More on that later.
You may wonder, what is the situation in the United States? According to Unchained At Last, an estimated 248,000 children, some as young as ten, were married in the United States between 2000 and 2010. Most, but not all, were girls, and seventy-seven percent of them were married to adult men. They provide an interactive map that gives data for most states. A few days prior to the publication of this blog post, the Florida legislature passed a law to prevent child marriage by closing exceptions to the legal age limit for marriage of eighteen. It hasn’t been signed into law, but if it is, Florida will be the first state to allow no exceptions to the legal age for marriage. According to Unchained At Last, exceptions in every other state (whether because of parental consent or judicial approval) allow marriage under the age of eighteen. In twenty-five states, there is effectively no minimum age limit at all!
As shocking as all these statistics are, if we fight against the practice or pass laws to prevent it, are we just interfering with the cultural norms of other societies? Or, are we interfering with the rights of one group to do as they please? To answer those questions, we have to look at the impact that child marriage has on both the children involved and on the societies that permit, or encourage, the practice. Girls make up the majority of those involved in child marriages and forced marriages, and the impact on girls worldwide has been profound.
Earlier, I cited a work by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. In Half the Sky, they share disturbing and heartbreaking stories about girls in Africa who marry young. Being too young for safe childbirth and lacking modern medical care, the girls have high rates of complications associated with pregnancy. In some the worst cases, they develop recto-vaginal fistulas during protracted labor. The result is chronic discharge and odor that renders them outcasts from their villages. Kristof and WuDunn interviewed young women who literally crawled to volunteer hospitals after being ostracized to the edges of their villages where they faced death from neglect or even from wild animals. The lucky ones that make it to the hospitals have surgery and may achieve some semblance of a normal life. In the United States, girls who marry young have poorer mental and physical health than those who wait until they are older. According to William And Mary law professor Vivian Hamilton:
Women who marry early…experience worse physical health and develop more mental health problems than those who marry later. Studies of women have found teen marriage to be significantly associated with mental disorders, particularly major depressive disorder. For women, teen marriage also correlates with heightened risk of heart attack, diabetes, cancer, and stroke.
Child marriage doesn’t just affect girls’ physical well-being. Girls who marry young are also less likely to finish their education. In many countries, girls who desire an education already face an uphill battle. Schools in undeveloped or underdeveloped countries may lack sanitary facilities for girls, meaning that they frequently are forced to leave school when they begin menstruation. Sometimes, educating girls simply is not an accepted cultural norm. When the girls marry young, though, they are even less likely to finish their education. While the link between child marriage and education is not entirely clear, it is clear that girls who marry as children are likely to drop out of school. According to Girls Not Brides, when a girl becomes a wife and mother, she will likely be expected to leave school to fulfill those roles. In many societies, pregnancy and the stigma associated with it often prevent girls from continuing their education, and sometimes pregnant girls may be forbidden from returning to school. Conversely, girls who stay in school are less likely to be married before the age of eighteen. All of this has an impact on society in general. According to UN Women, countries benefit economically when girls have access to education:
Increasing women and girls’ education contributes to higher economic growth. Increased educational attainment accounts for about 50 per cent of the economic growth in OECD countries over the past 50 years, of which over half is due to girls having had access to higher levels of education and achieving greater equality in the number of years spent in education between men and women.
Fighting child marriage isn’t easy work. As noted above, many states lack laws protecting children from child marriage and the associated consequences. Also, sometimes fighting child marriage means fighting ingrained cultural norms. Children may face great pressure from family members to follow traditional values. Investigations are often derailed when children, fearing retaliation, recant their stories. There are, though, several organizations on the front lines of the war against child marriage. The AHA Foundation, founded by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, advocates for victims of child marriage, honor violence, and female genital mutilation. Unchained At Last fights child marriage in the United States, while Girls Not Brides tackles the problem worldwide. Photographer Stephanie Sinclair documents child marriage through Too Young To Wed. Is there anything the average person can do? The answer is yes. Here are some ideas:
1. Educate yourself: The AHA Foundation, Unchained At Last, and Girls Not Brides have a wealth of information about child marriage and forced marriage, both here and abroad ❏
2. View the photos of Stephanie Sinclair. They are stunning, and they put human faces on the problem ❏
3. Financially support one of the organizations mentioned above ❏
4. Advocate for girls’ education. It’s good for girls and it’s good for society ❏
5. If you live in a state that doesn’t provide protection against child marriage, call your senators and representatives and tell them how important the issue is to you. You can do this through Unchained At Last ❏
6. Spread the word. Girls Not Brides has educational infographics that you can download ❏
M.
Sources:
•Gorney, Cynthia and Sinclair, Stephanie. “Too Young To Wed: The secret world
of child brides.” National Geographic, June 2011. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/child-brides/gorney-text
•Rowell, Melody and Sulakauri, Daro. “Inside the Lives of Georgia’s Child Brides.”
National Geographic, 2 Dec 2016. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2016/12/georgia-child-marriage/
•Kristof, Nicholas D. and WuDunn, Sheryl. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into
Opportunity for Women Worldwide Vintage, 2015.
•www.theahafoundation.org
•stephaniesinclair.com
•www.unchainedatlast.org
•www.girlsnotbrides.org
•unwomen.org