Submission ID 118454
| Issue/Objective | While there is evidence that child marriage (CM) is reducing globally, rates in many contexts remain far too high. Despite years of sustained efforts and investments to end CM, about 20% of the world's current population of ever-married women entered their unions as minors. The practice is most prevalent in West Africa, followed by South Asia, North Africa/the Middle East, and Latin America. However, major variations also exist in CM rates between countries from the same region as well as within individual countries. |
|---|---|
| Methodology/Approach | Our methodology was based on a scoping review of published research on the drivers, dynamics, and contexts of the persistence of CM. We searched multiple databases for peer-reviewed, English-language articles published between 2000 and 2023. |
| Results | High CM rates are continuing in circumstances of tenacious unequal gender norms, widespread poverty, limited schooling and economic prospects for girls, and weak awareness and enforcement of CM laws. Other contributing factors were opposition to women and girls' sexual, bodily, and reproductive rights; weak birth registration systems; a high proportion of women who married young in previous generations; early puberty; improved girls' agency; and the growing number of boys and young men who, having acquired locally prized masculinity resources, feel compelled to marry. |
| Discussion/Conclusion | Eradicating CM is key to creating a more equal, secure, and prosperous future for all. In our study, we have presented evidence for the conclusion that elevated CM rates are common in settings of extreme poverty, humanitarian and post-conflict situations, contexts of constrained or limited access to formal and vocational education among women and girls, and in communities with strong unequal norms and where emphasis is placed on female sexual purity as critical to family and community honor, and on marriage and childbirth as the core of female value. |
| Presenters and affiliations | Kirabo Suubi International Center for Research on Women Chimaraoke Izugbara International Center for Research on Women Plan International Team Plan International |
