Forced Marriage

You can read the short transcript about forced child marriage instead.

• From the Middle East to North America, South Asia to Africa, child marriage is a global problem that cuts across countries, cultures, religions and ethnicities.
• Niger has the highest rate of child marriage. But the country with the highest number of child marriages is India.
• Over 640 million women alive today were married as children. That’s nearly 9 times the population of the UK and almost twice the number of people in the USA!
• In some countries, people believe marriage to an older man offers protection to young girls, but this is not born out in fact. In Bangladesh, 47% of married girls have experienced partner violence. Child brides are more likely to endure physical, emotional and sexual abuse, an indicator of slavery.
• Not all child marriages amount to slavery. Child marriage constitutes slavery if the child has not genuinely given their free and informed consent, is subjected to control and a sense of “ownership,” particularly through abuse, threats, or exploitation, and cannot realistically leave or end the marriage.
• LGBTQ+ people living without community acceptance face additional risks of being forced into marriage as a form of ‘conversion therapy’. Maya is a survivor of forced marriage who said “Being forced into a marriage is like being sold to be raped.” 
• If an adult suffers these experiences, it also amounts to forced marriage or slavery. 
• Banning marriage for those under the age of 18 is an important step in areas where the cultural practice of child marriage is deeply embedded, but it will take more than that. In Bangladesh child marriage has been illegal since 1929. The law was reinforced in 1984, but child marriage still happens on a large scale. 
• Despite the many challenges, child marriage is decreasing around the world. A 2023 report by UNICEF shows that today, one in five young women aged 20 to 24 years were married as children versus nearly one in four 10 years ago. 
• South Asia leads the world in reducing the prevalence of child marriage: In the last decade alone, a girl’s likelihood of marrying in childhood has dropped by nearly half, from 46 per cent to 26 per cent. 

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