Should be renamed as child for live- enslaved.
Should have been renamed as child for live- enslaved...[..]
Campaign file.
child sexual exploitation and act of marriage.
Child marriage. All about data and discussion by international sources.
The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) data.
• Child Marriage
ICRW is leading efforts to find solutions that will eliminate the harmful traditional practice of child marriage.
Learn more »
Child Marriage Around the world: the importance of the question as a widespread fact.
• If present trends continue, 100 million girls will marry over the next decade. That’s 25,000 girls married every day for the next 10 years.
Poverty and Child Marriage
• Girls living in poor households are almost twice as likely to marry before 18 than girls in higher income households.
• More than half of the girls in Bangladesh, Mali, Mozambique and Niger are married before age 18. In these same countries, more than 75 percent of people live on less than $2 a day.
Education and Child Marriage
• Girls with higher levels of schooling are less likely to marry as children. In Mozambique, some 60 percent of girls with no education are married by 18, compared to 10 percent of girls with secondary schooling and less than one percent of girls with higher education.
• Educating adolescent girls has been a critical factor in increasing the age of marriage in a number of developing countries, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand.
Health and Child Marriage
• Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s. Pregnancy is the leading cause of death worldwide for women ages 15 to 19.
• Child brides face a higher risk of contracting HIV because they often marry an older man with more sexual experience. Girls ages 15 – 19 are 2 to 6 times more likely to contract HIV than boys of the same age in sub-Saharan Africa.
Violence and Child Marriage
• Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence than their peers who marry later. A study conducted by ICRW in two states in India found that girls who were married before 18 were twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped or threatened by their husbands than girls who married later.
• Child brides often show signs symptomatic of sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress such as feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and severe depression.
Religion and Child Marriage
• No one religious affiliation was associated with child marriage, according to a 2007 ICRW study. Rather, a variety of religions are associated with child marriage in countries throughout the world.
Country Name % girls married before 18
1 Niger 74.5
2 Chad 71.5
3 Mali 70.6
4 Bangladesh 66.2
5 Guinea 63.1
6 Central African Republic
57
7 Mozambique 55.9
8 Burkina Faso 51.9
9 Nepal 51.4
10 Ethiopia 49.2
11 Malawi 48.9
12 Madagascar 48.2
13 Sierra Leone 47.9
14 Cameroon 47.2
15 Eritrea 47
16 Uganda 46.3
17 India 44.5
18 Nicaragua 43.3
19 Zambia 41.6
20 Tanzania 41.1
ICRW (2010). Analysis of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data. Most recent surveys for all DHS surveyed countries. Rankings are based on data in which women ages 20 – 24 reported being married by age 18.
(United Nations Population Fund, 2011)
There will no doubt be discussion about rich countries' commitments to increase funds and whether governments in the developing world have used resources effectively. Unfortunately little attention will be given to child marriage and its damaging impact on the health of millions of girls and women.
There is, in fact, compelling evidence that child marriage has been a major brake on progress towards no less than six of the eight MDGs. Our hopes of reducing child and maternal mortality, combating HIV/Aids and achieving universal primary education are damaged by the fact that one in seven girls in the developing world – and it is overwhelmingly girls who suffer this fate - are married before they reach 15. So, too, are our ambitions to eliminate extreme poverty and promote gender equality.
The statistics are stark. In poor countries, babies born to mothers under 18 are 60% more likely to die in their first year than those born to older women. Girls under 15 are five times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women in their 20s. Lack of information, marriage to much older men and the inability to negotiate safe sexual practices also puts child brides at greater risk of HIV infection than their unmarried peers.
Child brides are more likely to drop out of school to concentrate on domestic chores and child rearing. But this bias against educating girls starts even earlier. In societies where girls are normally married off young, there can seem little point in investing in their education.
Poverty is a major driver of child marriage. In many poor countries and communities, marrying off a daughter relieves a family of an extra mouth to feed. A bride price or dowry can also be a much-needed windfall for desperate families.
All this has a damaging inter-generational impact. The children of young and poorly educated girls tend to do less well in school and have lower earnings as adults, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
Child marriages take place in every continent but they are particularly common in south Asia and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Child marriage rates reach 65% in Bangladesh and 48% in India – 76% in Niger and 71% in Chad. In the coming decade an estimated 100 million girls will be married before they reach 18.
You might think, given the powerful evidence of the damage caused to individuals and societies, that the practice of child marriage would be high on both national and global agendas. But what is striking is the discrepancy between the scale and seriousness of the problem and the attention it has been given.
We understand, of course, the reluctance to intervene in what is traditionally considered a family matter. We recognise that child marriage is embedded deep in the traditions of many societies and is all too often sanctioned by religious leaders. Change will not be easy.
There is some evidence that, thanks to grassroots campaigns and new economic opportunities for women, child marriage is in decline in some parts of the world. However, at the current rate of progress, it will take hundreds of years to disappear. The challenge is how we can help communities accelerate change.
This is why we and our fellow Elders are committed to drawing attention to the damage that child marriage is causing and to supporting those working towards ending it. This means a new emphasis on engagement, debate and education – especially at the community level.
We actively seek wider engagement with religious leaders on this issue. No religions we know explicitly promote child marriage. The fact that religious leaders condone and sanction it in many societies owes more to custom and tradition than doctrine. But we cannot allow the distortion of faith or long-standing custom to be used as an excuse to ignore the rights of girls and women, and to hold their communities in poverty.
What we have learned over the years is that social change of this kind cannot be imposed from above. Laws have little impact. The overwhelming majority of countries already outlaw child marriage through domestic legislation or are signatories to international treaties that prohibit it. But this has not fed through to change on the ground. In Zambia, for example, the legal minimum age for marriage is 21, yet 42% of girls are married by the age of 18 and nearly one in 12 by the time they reach 15. Similar contradictions are evident in many countries.
(ICRW, 2011)
National and international communities are increasingly recognizing child marriage
as a serious problem, both as a violation of girls’ human rights and as a hindrance
to key development outcomes
On balance, the results from this composite of evaluations lean toward positive findings,
indicating that a set of strategies focusing on girls’ empowerment, community mobilization,
enhanced schooling, economic incentives and policy changes have improved knowledge,
attitudes, and behavior related to child marriage prevention
The consequences of child marriage to the girls who experience it can be devastating
(Jain & Kurz 2007; UNICEF 2001; 2005; Mathur et al 2003). Early marriage leads to
early childbearing, with significantly higher maternal mortality and morbidity rates as
well as higher infant mortality rates (Mensch 2005; UNICEF 2005; Save the Children
2004; Bott & Jejeebhoy 2003). Moreover, child marriage has negative effects on girls’
education. Girls with low levels of schooling are more likely to be married early, and
child marriage virtually puts an end to a girl’s education (Mathur et al 2003; Mensch 2005;
Jejeebhoy 1995). A child bride’s lack of education and peers limits her support systems,
and without skills, mobility, and connections, she is constrained in her ability to overcome
poverty for herself, her children, or her family. Young girls married to older men with more
sexual experience are also at greater risk of HIV infection (Clark 2004), and child brides
are at heightened risk of violence in the home (ICRW 2005; Santhya et al 2010).
The lack of education, health, physical safety, and autonomy deprives girls of their
basic human rights, and it also acts as a brake to social and economic development.
National and international indicators on maternal health, education, food security,
poverty eradication, HIV/AIDS, and gender equality are all negatively linked with high
child marriage rates. In fact, child marriage undermines the achievement of each of
the eight Millennium Development Goals and global targets to reduce poverty worldwide
(UNICEF 2006).
Actions. (ICRW)
To empower women, advance gender Equality and fight poverty in the developing world
To examine past efforts and how well they have worked well-documented, and even fewer are well-evaluated and evidence base
Fostering information, skills, and networks for girls in combination with community mobilization.
Child marriage prevention
Signs that large-scale structural efforts aimed at other goals, such as education, health, and poverty reduction, are beginning to make a connection with child marriage prevention.
Communities, families and policymakers
Girls’ enrollment and retention
Life Skills program
These programs are larger scale, school and incentive-based programs that involve national ministries, multilateral agencies like the World Bank, and experts from the health or education sectors.
Delaying marriage
Mixed results: deeply entrenched social and cultural practices.
(ICRW, 2011)
1. DEPTH VERSUS SCALE AND SUSTAINABILITY
However, there is a possibility that the results may be temporary
and simply a response to a heavy dose of the intervention
The results suggest that, with some qualifications, this
strategy is working. However, there is a possibility that the results may be temporary
and simply a response to a heavy dose of the intervention. Moreover, the program’s
complexity may limit sophisticated evaluation, and program costs and infrastructural
demands may make scale and sustainability unlikely.
In the realm of child marriage prevention, more creative evaluation
approaches may be necessary to effectively understand and appreciate the extent to
which the desirable change has materialized. Researchers, implementers and donors
working in the field will have to decide whether they are wedded to positivist social
science or are willing to explore emerging thinking on “systems change” and “collective
impact,” which may be better suited to the endeavor of child marriage prevention
it is possible that the evaluation occurred too soon.
Programs have deployed a set of five core strategies to prevent child marriage:
• Empowering girls with information, skills and support networks
• Educating and mobilizing parents and community members
• Enhancing the accessibility and quality of formal schooling for girls
• Offering economic support and incentives for girls and their families
• Fostering an enabling legal and policy framework
AGENDA FOR FUTURE ACTION
Find the right balance between depth versus scale and sustainability by relying
on the experience of child marriage prevention experts, and also exploring new
government and private sector platforms and partnerships in the education,
health and economic sectors.
Associated subjects: related issues of the ICRW:
• Areas of Work
o Adolescents
Child Marriage
Agriculture & Food Security
o Economic Empowerment
Assets & Property Rights
Employment & Enterprise Development
o HIV & AIDS
Stigma & Discrimination
o Population & Reproductive Health
Fertility & Empowerment Network
o Violence Against Women
Engaging Men & Boys
o Emerging Issues
Innovation
Women & Technology
o Institutional Expertise
Advocacy & Policy Engagement
Building Capacity
Measurement & Evaluation
Research & Analysis
Strategic Guidance
Forced Marriage Continues in Many Countries
Case study:
Yemeni child bride dies of internal bleeding
HUMAN RIGHTS
A 12-year-old Yemeni bride died of internal bleeding following intercourse three days after she was married off to an older man, the United Nations Children's Fund said.
April 09, 2010
By Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN
Malaysian minister rejects child marriage reform
(AFP) – Mar 16, 2010
KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia's religion minister on Tuesday defended Islamic laws that allow girls under 16 to marry, amid a controversy over two youngsters who were married off to middle-aged men.
The issue has flared in Malaysia after reports that two girls aged 10 and 11 were wed in the conservative northern state of Kelantan last month. They have now been removed from their husbands.
Rights groups have called for the reform of Islamic laws that allow marriage under the age of 16 if religious officials give their consent. Sharia law runs in parallel with civil law in multi-ethnic Malaysia.
"There is no need to amend the law," Jamil Khir Baharom, a cabinet minister in charge of religious affairs, told reporters.
"The law already exists... marrying someone aged 16 and below requires the consent of the court. The court does not simply grant the consent," he said.
"Maturity is a subjective question. It depends on the development of the person. Maturity is not based on age solely."
Pressure group Sisters in Islam has called for an end to child marriages, saying the practice was "unacceptable" but continued in Malaysia because of a "belief that Muslim girls can be married off once they reach puberty".
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5inxYecjp4rz2Di91pAw_hTlMpTYw
YEMEN: Islamic lawmaker decries child marriage ban as part of 'Western agenda'
April 18, 2010
But that may prove a daunting challenge since fierce opposition against a ban on child brides still runs high among some religious leaders and conservatives.
Sheik Mohammed Hamzi, an official of the Islamist Yemeni opposition party Islaah and the imam of the Al-Rahman mosque in the Yemeni capital of Sana, is one of those who staunchly opposes a legal ban on child marriage.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/04/yemen-fierce-opposition-to-child-marriage-ban-persists-among-conservatives.html
U.S. International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act
Child marriage undermines global development efforts focused on creating more educated, healthier and economically stable populations. ICRW knows that by combating child marriage, we will increase the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance dollars – and give millions of girls a better chance to fulfill their potential.
Read More »
Child marriage: our commitment to ending it
Child marriage has been a major brake on progress towards six of the eight millennium development goals, write Jimmy Carter and Fernando Henrique Cardoso
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/17/child-marriage
Here the idea of my presentation.
Facts, figures, consequences of child marriage.
The fact that people seem to care, write about it, but a question arise.
Rational for letting that happen:
Religious.
Rational, maturity subjective are ‘reason’ used by people wanting this type of ‘sexual exploitation’ to go on. They will say that a child might be mature enough to marry an adult.
In every country this more than a scourge might happen, and happen in a gross scale under Christianity or Hindu religion influence. However one could have a particular concern about Islamic interpretation of the Hadith:
Religious people will preach that Mohamed had four wives in order not to consummate their marriage (even so children had been registered) but to simply give to women the legal protection they needed. At the time being a widow or unmarried could equal to being doomed to ‘abject poverty’. Also the polygamous “status” of mahammad, officialising other marriage would be trumped by saying that these marriage were not consummated. But economical household only, within which what liberty were octroied is some details I haven’t studied.
Also these material are very difficult to handle as a non Arabic speaker, non theologian, non historian…thus whatever might be found would be subject to interminable theorization and interpretation. Also my aim here is not to advocate a way of interpretation and thence not judging the texts of Islamic believes but doing so to the way they are discussed by ‘believers’ and worshippers and take as a justification for present actions and edits.
Mohammed in in most sources said to have ‘legally married’ four women. The last of which was a 6 year old called Aisha, with whom Mohammed had sexual intercourse when she was a 9 year old and him an over 50 year old character.
In many places, of course, that story is taken to justify actual and today’s institutionalized pedophilia (see case study) (Silas, 2011).
Sociologic:
Should one care about rational? Cultural relativism is used to give many reasons about child marriage customs, and defend the fact that nothing is done or should be done ‘in a quiet manner’ as it is society practices’. Cultural relativism is a viewpoint adopted by many in sociology.
Cultural relativism is a widely held position in the modern world. Words like “pluralism,” “tolerance,” and “acceptance” have taken on new meanings, as the boundaries of “culture” have expanded. The loose way in which modern society defines these ideas has made it possible for almost anything to be justified on the grounds of “relativism.” The umbrella of “relativism” includes a fairly wide range of ideas, all of which introduce instability and uncertainty into areas that were previously considered settled.
However, the problem with moving from cultural perspective to cultural relativism is the erosion of reason that it causes. Rather than simply saying, “we need to understand the morals of other cultures,” it says, “we cannot judge the morals of other cultures,” regardless of the reasons for their actions.
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/cultural-relativism.htm
I will argue that some people demonstrate how Western thinking is biased in saying that it is only about “what we think”, that culture is a matter of opinion. I would answer that it is not about no one thinks but what about facts. It is not about taking into consideration how I feel, or how the average people, anyone feel but to concentrate on what the girls endure.
Also on a larger reciprocity, if they want to know what people think and feel well it would be just fair enough that they go under, through the torture that they let happen in the name of ‘relativisation’, ‘tolerance’ or ‘diplomacy’.
Similarly, to take a different analogy, if you permit sexual mutilation, then to understand how it is injustice, would it be useful to think yourself without sex, clitoris or penis?
Even, in breach of such bodily integrity (whatever body mutilation or sexual slavery) retributive justice would make sense happening. Ex: if one is threatening a child and that there is no possibility to stop you but imprisonment then should prevail such punishment.
Aims of my presentation:
Why cultural relativism about other places?
Taboo inside one’s own?
Is it the product of poverty alone or mentalities?
Would the western world justify not intervening and preventing invoking ‘cultural relativism’?
In this presentation, are listed a number of articles in which girls are often viewed through their health, productivity, diplomas, live skills, social achievements…
One question certainly less reviewed by officials is the links between child marriage, and slavery, domestic abuses and torture. Or the fact that children has to be protected not because of the measurable results on criteria and evaluation but because to ‘marry’ a child to an adult (constant biologic) is an act of torture, total control upon personal development, “to own another life, and perpetual violation.
UNPF (2011)
LAC: Latin America and the Caribbean:
Widespread in the west?
Even less so mentioned the taboo on pedophilia.
If I am mentioning taboo here is because pedophilia though concerning the more vulnerable population, the children, often by their own carers or familiars, (parents, family, siblings…) will be happening concealed by ‘privacy’.
I would argue that pedophilia is a very widespread phenomemon in ‘first world countries’ but is so the object of ‘tabooisation’ that for example schools, or civil society did not elaborate projects to talk openly and regularly about these subjects, leaving ‘sexual education’ and what is sexual behavior or sexual predation up to the family to set up or to ignore…that is to say not made public and leaving certain children in total ignorance or impotence about a danger that target them especially and solely.
• The National Resource Council estimates the percent of the U.S. population which has been sexually abused to range from a low of 20-24 percent to a high of 54-62 percent of the population; the higher estimate includes sexualized exposure without touching, such as masturbating in front of the child.1 The largest retrospective study on the prevalence of child sexual abuse found 27 percent of women and 16 percent of men reported abuse.4
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php
Similar data on sexual and physical abuses and violence had notoriously been reported in countries (yet giving the green light to such enquiries) such as France.
video
The Bride Price: Consequences of Child Marriage Worldwide ...
12 Mar 2008 ... The Bride Price: Consequences of Child Marriage Worldwide is a video containing moving images by Stephanie Sinclair - recipient of the 2007 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UamNBfI5P8o
Bibliography:
- Ahmed, S. Prophet Muhammad and Aisha Siddiqa?
[internet] http://www.themodernreligion.com/prophet/prophet_aisha.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-Advocates for Youth. 2008.
[internet] http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php. [last access 21-12-11]
-Human rights democracy website.
[internet] http://middleeast.about.com/od/humanrightsdemocracy/a/child-brides.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-Humanist and Ethical Union: The world union of Humanist organizations.
[internet] http://www.iheu.org/child-marriage-a-violation-of-human-rights [last access 21-12-11]
-International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)
[internet] http://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-and-figures [last access 21-12-11]
-Jamjoom, M. Yemeni child bride dies of internal bleeding. CNN, April 09, 2010
[internet] http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-09/world/yemen.child.bride.death_1_yemeni-marriage-child-brides?_s=PM:WORLD [last access 21-12-11]
-MuslimHope website: A’isha: Mohammed’s Nine-Year Old Wife
[internet] http://www.muslimhope.com/AishaNine.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-Philosophy: all about. Cultural relativism.
[internet] http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/cultural-relativism.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-Sandels , A. YEMEN: Islamic lawmaker decries child marriage ban as part of 'Western agenda' Latimes,
April 18, 2010.
[internet] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/04/yemen-fierce-opposition-to-child-marriage-ban-persists-among-conservatives.html [last access 21-12-11]
-Silas. MUHAMMAD, AISHA, ISLAM, AND CHILD BRIDES
[internet] http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/childbrides.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-UNICEF. United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund
[internet] http://www.unicef.org/protection/files/Child_Marriage.pdf [last access 21-12-11]
-United Nations Population Fund.
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/presskit/factsheets/facts_child_marriage.htm
Should have been renamed as child for live- enslaved...[..]
Campaign file.
child sexual exploitation and act of marriage.
Child marriage. All about data and discussion by international sources.
The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) data.
• Child Marriage
ICRW is leading efforts to find solutions that will eliminate the harmful traditional practice of child marriage.
Learn more »
Child Marriage Around the world: the importance of the question as a widespread fact.
• If present trends continue, 100 million girls will marry over the next decade. That’s 25,000 girls married every day for the next 10 years.
Poverty and Child Marriage
• Girls living in poor households are almost twice as likely to marry before 18 than girls in higher income households.
• More than half of the girls in Bangladesh, Mali, Mozambique and Niger are married before age 18. In these same countries, more than 75 percent of people live on less than $2 a day.
Education and Child Marriage
• Girls with higher levels of schooling are less likely to marry as children. In Mozambique, some 60 percent of girls with no education are married by 18, compared to 10 percent of girls with secondary schooling and less than one percent of girls with higher education.
• Educating adolescent girls has been a critical factor in increasing the age of marriage in a number of developing countries, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand.
Health and Child Marriage
• Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s. Pregnancy is the leading cause of death worldwide for women ages 15 to 19.
• Child brides face a higher risk of contracting HIV because they often marry an older man with more sexual experience. Girls ages 15 – 19 are 2 to 6 times more likely to contract HIV than boys of the same age in sub-Saharan Africa.
Violence and Child Marriage
• Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence than their peers who marry later. A study conducted by ICRW in two states in India found that girls who were married before 18 were twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped or threatened by their husbands than girls who married later.
• Child brides often show signs symptomatic of sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress such as feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and severe depression.
Religion and Child Marriage
• No one religious affiliation was associated with child marriage, according to a 2007 ICRW study. Rather, a variety of religions are associated with child marriage in countries throughout the world.
Country Name % girls married before 18
1 Niger 74.5
2 Chad 71.5
3 Mali 70.6
4 Bangladesh 66.2
5 Guinea 63.1
6 Central African Republic
57
7 Mozambique 55.9
8 Burkina Faso 51.9
9 Nepal 51.4
10 Ethiopia 49.2
11 Malawi 48.9
12 Madagascar 48.2
13 Sierra Leone 47.9
14 Cameroon 47.2
15 Eritrea 47
16 Uganda 46.3
17 India 44.5
18 Nicaragua 43.3
19 Zambia 41.6
20 Tanzania 41.1
ICRW (2010). Analysis of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data. Most recent surveys for all DHS surveyed countries. Rankings are based on data in which women ages 20 – 24 reported being married by age 18.
(United Nations Population Fund, 2011)
There will no doubt be discussion about rich countries' commitments to increase funds and whether governments in the developing world have used resources effectively. Unfortunately little attention will be given to child marriage and its damaging impact on the health of millions of girls and women.
There is, in fact, compelling evidence that child marriage has been a major brake on progress towards no less than six of the eight MDGs. Our hopes of reducing child and maternal mortality, combating HIV/Aids and achieving universal primary education are damaged by the fact that one in seven girls in the developing world – and it is overwhelmingly girls who suffer this fate - are married before they reach 15. So, too, are our ambitions to eliminate extreme poverty and promote gender equality.
The statistics are stark. In poor countries, babies born to mothers under 18 are 60% more likely to die in their first year than those born to older women. Girls under 15 are five times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women in their 20s. Lack of information, marriage to much older men and the inability to negotiate safe sexual practices also puts child brides at greater risk of HIV infection than their unmarried peers.
Child brides are more likely to drop out of school to concentrate on domestic chores and child rearing. But this bias against educating girls starts even earlier. In societies where girls are normally married off young, there can seem little point in investing in their education.
Poverty is a major driver of child marriage. In many poor countries and communities, marrying off a daughter relieves a family of an extra mouth to feed. A bride price or dowry can also be a much-needed windfall for desperate families.
All this has a damaging inter-generational impact. The children of young and poorly educated girls tend to do less well in school and have lower earnings as adults, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
Child marriages take place in every continent but they are particularly common in south Asia and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Child marriage rates reach 65% in Bangladesh and 48% in India – 76% in Niger and 71% in Chad. In the coming decade an estimated 100 million girls will be married before they reach 18.
You might think, given the powerful evidence of the damage caused to individuals and societies, that the practice of child marriage would be high on both national and global agendas. But what is striking is the discrepancy between the scale and seriousness of the problem and the attention it has been given.
We understand, of course, the reluctance to intervene in what is traditionally considered a family matter. We recognise that child marriage is embedded deep in the traditions of many societies and is all too often sanctioned by religious leaders. Change will not be easy.
There is some evidence that, thanks to grassroots campaigns and new economic opportunities for women, child marriage is in decline in some parts of the world. However, at the current rate of progress, it will take hundreds of years to disappear. The challenge is how we can help communities accelerate change.
This is why we and our fellow Elders are committed to drawing attention to the damage that child marriage is causing and to supporting those working towards ending it. This means a new emphasis on engagement, debate and education – especially at the community level.
We actively seek wider engagement with religious leaders on this issue. No religions we know explicitly promote child marriage. The fact that religious leaders condone and sanction it in many societies owes more to custom and tradition than doctrine. But we cannot allow the distortion of faith or long-standing custom to be used as an excuse to ignore the rights of girls and women, and to hold their communities in poverty.
What we have learned over the years is that social change of this kind cannot be imposed from above. Laws have little impact. The overwhelming majority of countries already outlaw child marriage through domestic legislation or are signatories to international treaties that prohibit it. But this has not fed through to change on the ground. In Zambia, for example, the legal minimum age for marriage is 21, yet 42% of girls are married by the age of 18 and nearly one in 12 by the time they reach 15. Similar contradictions are evident in many countries.
(ICRW, 2011)
National and international communities are increasingly recognizing child marriage
as a serious problem, both as a violation of girls’ human rights and as a hindrance
to key development outcomes
On balance, the results from this composite of evaluations lean toward positive findings,
indicating that a set of strategies focusing on girls’ empowerment, community mobilization,
enhanced schooling, economic incentives and policy changes have improved knowledge,
attitudes, and behavior related to child marriage prevention
The consequences of child marriage to the girls who experience it can be devastating
(Jain & Kurz 2007; UNICEF 2001; 2005; Mathur et al 2003). Early marriage leads to
early childbearing, with significantly higher maternal mortality and morbidity rates as
well as higher infant mortality rates (Mensch 2005; UNICEF 2005; Save the Children
2004; Bott & Jejeebhoy 2003). Moreover, child marriage has negative effects on girls’
education. Girls with low levels of schooling are more likely to be married early, and
child marriage virtually puts an end to a girl’s education (Mathur et al 2003; Mensch 2005;
Jejeebhoy 1995). A child bride’s lack of education and peers limits her support systems,
and without skills, mobility, and connections, she is constrained in her ability to overcome
poverty for herself, her children, or her family. Young girls married to older men with more
sexual experience are also at greater risk of HIV infection (Clark 2004), and child brides
are at heightened risk of violence in the home (ICRW 2005; Santhya et al 2010).
The lack of education, health, physical safety, and autonomy deprives girls of their
basic human rights, and it also acts as a brake to social and economic development.
National and international indicators on maternal health, education, food security,
poverty eradication, HIV/AIDS, and gender equality are all negatively linked with high
child marriage rates. In fact, child marriage undermines the achievement of each of
the eight Millennium Development Goals and global targets to reduce poverty worldwide
(UNICEF 2006).
Actions. (ICRW)
To empower women, advance gender Equality and fight poverty in the developing world
To examine past efforts and how well they have worked well-documented, and even fewer are well-evaluated and evidence base
Fostering information, skills, and networks for girls in combination with community mobilization.
Child marriage prevention
Signs that large-scale structural efforts aimed at other goals, such as education, health, and poverty reduction, are beginning to make a connection with child marriage prevention.
Communities, families and policymakers
Girls’ enrollment and retention
Life Skills program
These programs are larger scale, school and incentive-based programs that involve national ministries, multilateral agencies like the World Bank, and experts from the health or education sectors.
Delaying marriage
Mixed results: deeply entrenched social and cultural practices.
(ICRW, 2011)
1. DEPTH VERSUS SCALE AND SUSTAINABILITY
However, there is a possibility that the results may be temporary
and simply a response to a heavy dose of the intervention
The results suggest that, with some qualifications, this
strategy is working. However, there is a possibility that the results may be temporary
and simply a response to a heavy dose of the intervention. Moreover, the program’s
complexity may limit sophisticated evaluation, and program costs and infrastructural
demands may make scale and sustainability unlikely.
In the realm of child marriage prevention, more creative evaluation
approaches may be necessary to effectively understand and appreciate the extent to
which the desirable change has materialized. Researchers, implementers and donors
working in the field will have to decide whether they are wedded to positivist social
science or are willing to explore emerging thinking on “systems change” and “collective
impact,” which may be better suited to the endeavor of child marriage prevention
it is possible that the evaluation occurred too soon.
Programs have deployed a set of five core strategies to prevent child marriage:
• Empowering girls with information, skills and support networks
• Educating and mobilizing parents and community members
• Enhancing the accessibility and quality of formal schooling for girls
• Offering economic support and incentives for girls and their families
• Fostering an enabling legal and policy framework
AGENDA FOR FUTURE ACTION
Find the right balance between depth versus scale and sustainability by relying
on the experience of child marriage prevention experts, and also exploring new
government and private sector platforms and partnerships in the education,
health and economic sectors.
Associated subjects: related issues of the ICRW:
• Areas of Work
o Adolescents
Child Marriage
Agriculture & Food Security
o Economic Empowerment
Assets & Property Rights
Employment & Enterprise Development
o HIV & AIDS
Stigma & Discrimination
o Population & Reproductive Health
Fertility & Empowerment Network
o Violence Against Women
Engaging Men & Boys
o Emerging Issues
Innovation
Women & Technology
o Institutional Expertise
Advocacy & Policy Engagement
Building Capacity
Measurement & Evaluation
Research & Analysis
Strategic Guidance
Forced Marriage Continues in Many Countries
Case study:
Yemeni child bride dies of internal bleeding
HUMAN RIGHTS
A 12-year-old Yemeni bride died of internal bleeding following intercourse three days after she was married off to an older man, the United Nations Children's Fund said.
April 09, 2010
By Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN
Malaysian minister rejects child marriage reform
(AFP) – Mar 16, 2010
KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia's religion minister on Tuesday defended Islamic laws that allow girls under 16 to marry, amid a controversy over two youngsters who were married off to middle-aged men.
The issue has flared in Malaysia after reports that two girls aged 10 and 11 were wed in the conservative northern state of Kelantan last month. They have now been removed from their husbands.
Rights groups have called for the reform of Islamic laws that allow marriage under the age of 16 if religious officials give their consent. Sharia law runs in parallel with civil law in multi-ethnic Malaysia.
"There is no need to amend the law," Jamil Khir Baharom, a cabinet minister in charge of religious affairs, told reporters.
"The law already exists... marrying someone aged 16 and below requires the consent of the court. The court does not simply grant the consent," he said.
"Maturity is a subjective question. It depends on the development of the person. Maturity is not based on age solely."
Pressure group Sisters in Islam has called for an end to child marriages, saying the practice was "unacceptable" but continued in Malaysia because of a "belief that Muslim girls can be married off once they reach puberty".
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5inxYecjp4rz2Di91pAw_hTlMpTYw
YEMEN: Islamic lawmaker decries child marriage ban as part of 'Western agenda'
April 18, 2010
But that may prove a daunting challenge since fierce opposition against a ban on child brides still runs high among some religious leaders and conservatives.
Sheik Mohammed Hamzi, an official of the Islamist Yemeni opposition party Islaah and the imam of the Al-Rahman mosque in the Yemeni capital of Sana, is one of those who staunchly opposes a legal ban on child marriage.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/04/yemen-fierce-opposition-to-child-marriage-ban-persists-among-conservatives.html
U.S. International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act
Child marriage undermines global development efforts focused on creating more educated, healthier and economically stable populations. ICRW knows that by combating child marriage, we will increase the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance dollars – and give millions of girls a better chance to fulfill their potential.
Read More »
Child marriage: our commitment to ending it
Child marriage has been a major brake on progress towards six of the eight millennium development goals, write Jimmy Carter and Fernando Henrique Cardoso
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/17/child-marriage
Here the idea of my presentation.
Facts, figures, consequences of child marriage.
The fact that people seem to care, write about it, but a question arise.
Rational for letting that happen:
Religious.
Rational, maturity subjective are ‘reason’ used by people wanting this type of ‘sexual exploitation’ to go on. They will say that a child might be mature enough to marry an adult.
In every country this more than a scourge might happen, and happen in a gross scale under Christianity or Hindu religion influence. However one could have a particular concern about Islamic interpretation of the Hadith:
Religious people will preach that Mohamed had four wives in order not to consummate their marriage (even so children had been registered) but to simply give to women the legal protection they needed. At the time being a widow or unmarried could equal to being doomed to ‘abject poverty’. Also the polygamous “status” of mahammad, officialising other marriage would be trumped by saying that these marriage were not consummated. But economical household only, within which what liberty were octroied is some details I haven’t studied.
Also these material are very difficult to handle as a non Arabic speaker, non theologian, non historian…thus whatever might be found would be subject to interminable theorization and interpretation. Also my aim here is not to advocate a way of interpretation and thence not judging the texts of Islamic believes but doing so to the way they are discussed by ‘believers’ and worshippers and take as a justification for present actions and edits.
Mohammed in in most sources said to have ‘legally married’ four women. The last of which was a 6 year old called Aisha, with whom Mohammed had sexual intercourse when she was a 9 year old and him an over 50 year old character.
In many places, of course, that story is taken to justify actual and today’s institutionalized pedophilia (see case study) (Silas, 2011).
Sociologic:
Should one care about rational? Cultural relativism is used to give many reasons about child marriage customs, and defend the fact that nothing is done or should be done ‘in a quiet manner’ as it is society practices’. Cultural relativism is a viewpoint adopted by many in sociology.
Cultural relativism is a widely held position in the modern world. Words like “pluralism,” “tolerance,” and “acceptance” have taken on new meanings, as the boundaries of “culture” have expanded. The loose way in which modern society defines these ideas has made it possible for almost anything to be justified on the grounds of “relativism.” The umbrella of “relativism” includes a fairly wide range of ideas, all of which introduce instability and uncertainty into areas that were previously considered settled.
However, the problem with moving from cultural perspective to cultural relativism is the erosion of reason that it causes. Rather than simply saying, “we need to understand the morals of other cultures,” it says, “we cannot judge the morals of other cultures,” regardless of the reasons for their actions.
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/cultural-relativism.htm
I will argue that some people demonstrate how Western thinking is biased in saying that it is only about “what we think”, that culture is a matter of opinion. I would answer that it is not about no one thinks but what about facts. It is not about taking into consideration how I feel, or how the average people, anyone feel but to concentrate on what the girls endure.
Also on a larger reciprocity, if they want to know what people think and feel well it would be just fair enough that they go under, through the torture that they let happen in the name of ‘relativisation’, ‘tolerance’ or ‘diplomacy’.
Similarly, to take a different analogy, if you permit sexual mutilation, then to understand how it is injustice, would it be useful to think yourself without sex, clitoris or penis?
Even, in breach of such bodily integrity (whatever body mutilation or sexual slavery) retributive justice would make sense happening. Ex: if one is threatening a child and that there is no possibility to stop you but imprisonment then should prevail such punishment.
Aims of my presentation:
Why cultural relativism about other places?
Taboo inside one’s own?
Is it the product of poverty alone or mentalities?
Would the western world justify not intervening and preventing invoking ‘cultural relativism’?
In this presentation, are listed a number of articles in which girls are often viewed through their health, productivity, diplomas, live skills, social achievements…
One question certainly less reviewed by officials is the links between child marriage, and slavery, domestic abuses and torture. Or the fact that children has to be protected not because of the measurable results on criteria and evaluation but because to ‘marry’ a child to an adult (constant biologic) is an act of torture, total control upon personal development, “to own another life, and perpetual violation.
UNPF (2011)
LAC: Latin America and the Caribbean:
Widespread in the west?
Even less so mentioned the taboo on pedophilia.
If I am mentioning taboo here is because pedophilia though concerning the more vulnerable population, the children, often by their own carers or familiars, (parents, family, siblings…) will be happening concealed by ‘privacy’.
I would argue that pedophilia is a very widespread phenomemon in ‘first world countries’ but is so the object of ‘tabooisation’ that for example schools, or civil society did not elaborate projects to talk openly and regularly about these subjects, leaving ‘sexual education’ and what is sexual behavior or sexual predation up to the family to set up or to ignore…that is to say not made public and leaving certain children in total ignorance or impotence about a danger that target them especially and solely.
• The National Resource Council estimates the percent of the U.S. population which has been sexually abused to range from a low of 20-24 percent to a high of 54-62 percent of the population; the higher estimate includes sexualized exposure without touching, such as masturbating in front of the child.1 The largest retrospective study on the prevalence of child sexual abuse found 27 percent of women and 16 percent of men reported abuse.4
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php
Similar data on sexual and physical abuses and violence had notoriously been reported in countries (yet giving the green light to such enquiries) such as France.
video
The Bride Price: Consequences of Child Marriage Worldwide ...
12 Mar 2008 ... The Bride Price: Consequences of Child Marriage Worldwide is a video containing moving images by Stephanie Sinclair - recipient of the 2007 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UamNBfI5P8o
Bibliography:
- Ahmed, S. Prophet Muhammad and Aisha Siddiqa?
[internet] http://www.themodernreligion.com/prophet/prophet_aisha.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-Advocates for Youth. 2008.
[internet] http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php. [last access 21-12-11]
-Human rights democracy website.
[internet] http://middleeast.about.com/od/humanrightsdemocracy/a/child-brides.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-Humanist and Ethical Union: The world union of Humanist organizations.
[internet] http://www.iheu.org/child-marriage-a-violation-of-human-rights [last access 21-12-11]
-International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)
[internet] http://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-and-figures [last access 21-12-11]
-Jamjoom, M. Yemeni child bride dies of internal bleeding. CNN, April 09, 2010
[internet] http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-09/world/yemen.child.bride.death_1_yemeni-marriage-child-brides?_s=PM:WORLD [last access 21-12-11]
-MuslimHope website: A’isha: Mohammed’s Nine-Year Old Wife
[internet] http://www.muslimhope.com/AishaNine.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-Philosophy: all about. Cultural relativism.
[internet] http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/cultural-relativism.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-Sandels , A. YEMEN: Islamic lawmaker decries child marriage ban as part of 'Western agenda' Latimes,
April 18, 2010.
[internet] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/04/yemen-fierce-opposition-to-child-marriage-ban-persists-among-conservatives.html [last access 21-12-11]
-Silas. MUHAMMAD, AISHA, ISLAM, AND CHILD BRIDES
[internet] http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/childbrides.htm [last access 21-12-11]
-UNICEF. United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund
[internet] http://www.unicef.org/protection/files/Child_Marriage.pdf [last access 21-12-11]
-United Nations Population Fund.
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/presskit/factsheets/facts_child_marriage.htm
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