STOP CHILD MARRIAGE, VALUE GIRLS!

What is a child marriage?Marriage should be a time for celebration and joy – unless you are one of the 64 million girls around the world forced into marriage before the age of 18.
Child marriage is a violation of child rights, and has a negative impact on physical growth, health, mental and emotional development, and education opportunities. It is defined as a marriage of a girl or boy before the age of 18 and refers to both formal marriages and informal unions in which children under the age of 18 live with a partner as if married.One in 3 girls in the developing world is married by age 18, 1 in 9 by the time she's 15.The United Nations Population Fund estimates that every year, more than 14 million adolescent and teen girls are married, almost always forced into the arrangement by their parents. The countries with the highest rates of child marriage are in sub-Saharan Africa, but those with the largest number of child brides are in South Asia.Each day, 39.000 girls under the age of 18 become child brides. That’s about one every two seconds.

Child marriage is the result of the interplay of economic and social forces. In communities where the practice is prevalent, marrying a girl as a child is part of a cluster of social norms and attitudes that reflect the low value accorded to the human rights of girls. It is important to notice that child marriage affects both boys and girls, but it is more common among girls. Child marriage has lasting consequences on girls, from their health, education and social development perspectives. These consequences last well beyond adolescence. One of the most common causes of death for girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries was pregnancy and childbirth. Child brides are almost always married to older menand lack the standing or skills to negotiate over sex or birth control. That means many get pregnant soon after marriage, when their bodies are too underdeveloped or too small to handle it. Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s, according to the International Center for Research on Women.

UNICEF and UNFPA have joined forces through a Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage. The programme was launched in 2015 to cover eight states with moderate to high rates of child marriage, focusing on districts with the highest incidence. Four of the states have shown promising decline in the rates of child marriage over the past ten years – Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan – and four have had more moderate progress – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, and West Bengal. For the first time, existing strategies in areas like health, education, child protection, and water and sanitation, are coming together to form a unique holistic programme with shared plans and goals. Working in partnership with governments, civil society organizations and young people themselves, methods that have already been proven to work will be operated at scale.

HOW TO PREVENT IT?  There are many causes of child marriage in India and multiple barriers to its elimination. Hunger, lower social status, chores, early marriage, school safety and sanitation are all barriers preventing a girl from receiving a proper education. Education can be a life-saving resource that establishes a vulnerable child’s sense of normalcy and builds self-esteem and hope for the future. Many experts consider education an essential humanitarian response to complex emergencies, closely following food, water and shelter. Also having access to basic clean water and a decent toilet saves children's lives, gives women an advantage in earning money and ensures a good food supply. Improved sanitation can keep a girl in school by making facilities available to her when she reaches puberty. Education empowers women: one additional school year can increase a woman’s earnings by 10% to 20%.

HEEALS(Health, Education, Environment And Livelihood Society), is an organization directly involved in girls education and health in India. It is working on Water Sanitation, Menstrual Hygiene and Children Education projects in seven states. Through spreading education on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and organizing WASH and MH workshop, HEEALS is working to increase the attendance rates of girls in schools who drop out from school due to child marriage. HEEALS works in marginalized communities, slum schools, schools in unauthorised colonies, orphanages and refugee camps to increase the attendance rates of pupils in schools who leave their studies, reduce the number of diseases and deaths and improve the health of people across Indian society.

- Caterina

WASH Intern 

REFERENCES:

·       UNICEF India Final report 2018

·    United Nations Children’s Fund, Ending Child Marriage: Progress and prospects, UNICEF, New York, 2014.

·         5 Things you may not know about Child Marriage NPR, Washington DC

·    International Institute for Population Sciences and Macro International, National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 2015-16: State Fact Sheet for Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya, Maharashtra, Odisha, Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal, IIPS, Mumbai, 2016.

· Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: CARE's Global Experience https://www.care.org/our-work/education/girls-education/barriers-education