According to the International Center for Research on Women, if present child marriage trends continue, more than 142 million girls worldwide will be forced to marry adult men during the next decade — the equivalent of 38,000 girls every day.
As in many other nations, an individual is considered a minor if he or she is under the age of 18. However, girls are coerced into marriage at much younger ages. According to UNICEF, around one-third of women ages 20 to 24 in the developing world were married as children. Child marriage is also common in other South Asian countries and some African nations.
Girls forced into marriage face many challenges. Often they must drop out of school to raise children, which diminishes their future opportunities. And depending on the girls’ developmental stage, pregnancy can be a tremendous physical burden. More than 70,000 girls aged 15 to 19 die due to complications relating to childbirth every year. Even children whose mothers survive face challenges of their own, including being underweight and suffering delayed physical and cognitive development.
EFFECTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE?
Child brides are more likely to die younger, suffer from health problems, live in poverty and remain illiterate.
1. Premature Pregnancy: Child brides almost always bear children before they are physically – or emotionally – ready.
2. Maternal Mortality: Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die during child birth or pregnancy than older women. Pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of mortality for girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide.
3. Infant Mortality: Mortality rates for babies born to mothers under age 20 are almost 75% higher than for children born to older mothers. The children that survive are more likely to be premature, have a low birth weight, and are more at risk for contracting HIV/AIDS.
4. Health Problems: Premature childbirth can lead to a variety of health problems for mothers, including fistula, a debilitating condition that causes chronic incontinence. Girls with fistula are often abandoned by their husbands and ostracized by society. There are approximately 2 million girls living with fistula, and 100,000 new cases every year.
5. HIV/AIDS: Married girls may be more likely to contract sexually transmitted disease, including HIV/AIDS, than unmarried girls. Young girls are more physically susceptible to STD’s, have less access to reproductive education and health services and are often powerless to demand the use of contraception.
6. Illiteracy: Child brides are often pulled out of school and denied further education. Their children are also more likely to be illiterate.
7. Poverty: Child brides – already poor – are isolated and denied education and employment opportunities, making it difficult for them break out of the cycle of poverty.
8. Abuse and Violence: Child brides are more likely to experience domestic abuse, and violence than their peers who marry later.
9. Mental Health: Violence and abuse can lead to post-traumatic stress and depression.
10. Isolation and Abandonment: Child brides are often isolated from their peers and abandoned if they develop health problems like fistula.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Young girls’ futures depend on a halt to this harmful practice. All that our girls need is EDUCATION not MARRIAGE! Our girls need to informed and provide them with educational opportunities.
Poverty and illiteracy is a major contributing factor in child marriage. Girls from low-income families lacking access to education are more than twice as likely to be married to adult men, while girls with higher levels of schooling are less likely to be forced into premature marriages.
Nigerian must stand up and say NO to this destructive law passed by the senate to legalised Child Marriage! It is barbaric and suicidal…
It is a collective rescue mission. Irrespective of your tribe, religion or language, we must say NO TO THE LEGALISATION OF CHILD MARRIAGE.
#ChildNotBride #DamilareAgaintChildMarriage #TeamTBIAgainstCHILDBRIDE
