CHILD MARRIAGES  (part two)                                                   

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According to UNICEF, child marriage is the "formal marriage or informal union before age 18," and it affects more girls than boys. In Afghanistan, 57% of girls are married before they are 19. The most common ages for girls to get married are 15 and 16. Factors such as gender dynamics, family structure, cultural, political, and economic perceptions/ideologies all play a role in determining if a girl is married at a young age. The practice of child marriage has been linked to detrimental consequence. There are cases of baby girls being betrothed as newborns, but these have not been included as they were not actually married until much later.

Many young girls are married off at horrifyingly young ages and their plights will never be revealed, due to the remoteness of the area they live in and the cultural subjectivity which surrounds the practice. The effects of child marriage on a young bride are invariably negative. The difference in age between a bride and her future husband can be, at times, considerable, leaving the girl susceptible to abuse and neglect. Rights are often ignored, access to education is removed and there are considerable health and social concerns, such as the risk of death during childbirth and sexual abuse. Although there are groups and organizations pushing for more education in regard to child marriage, and pressuring governments to change laws to help protect children, the fact remains that there are an estimated 57.5 million child brides in the world (many of them being in India). Clearly, there's a significant amount of work to be done before this contentious practice becomes a thing of the past.

Each year, as many as 12 million girls are married before the age of 18. That is 23 girls every minute and one every two seconds. 

Campaigns about, child marriage have a long history in Nepal. National data show that child marriages are particularly common among Dalits - something experts attribute to persistent poverty and illiteracy among this historically marginalized population. Nepal outlawed child marriages in 1963 (and subsequently outlawed caste discrimination in 1991). Aid agencies and NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) have run extensive shaming campaigns to end the practice. However, experts say, such tactics have missed their target, and fresh attempts to tackle poverty and discrimination to end Nepal’s child marriages. 

Child marriage in Afghanistan is so common that over 30 percent of all girls are married before the age of 18. This disturbing figure bears more than a cursory glance. Aside from causing immense emotional and physical duress for child brides, the practice also massively hinders the girls’ ability to access education.

In Afghanistan, the relationship between the occurrence of child marriage and lack of education for females is chilling. Only 14 percent of girls are literate and only 36 percent are receiving an education. Of course, these figures cannot be a result of child marriage in Afghanistan alone.

Child marriage in Afghanistan is a direct result of poverty, strong patriarchal values, lack of access to education and cultural practices. All of these factors could be prevented by increasing female participation in schooling, as not only would girls be immediately affected; their qualifications would also allow them to later have a voice in decision making. The mere practice of being in school also furthers the perception that girls are still too young to be married and must invest their time in learning instead of child rearing.

The phenomenon of child marriage in Afghanistan is not unique to the country, nor even to South Asia. In fact, the country with the highest prevalence of child brides is Niger, with 76 percent of girls married by the age of 18. In South Asia, the largest absolute number of child brides is in India where 12 million children were married before the age of ten.

These figures speak to the fact that child marriage is not a phenomenon of any one race or religion. It has developed independently around the world, often for financial benefit or social mobility. However, in all cases, the effects on young girls have been devastating.

Other factors created by a highly patriarchal society must be taken into consideration. Obviously, marrying off girls at a young age has an undeniable influence on their education. The clearest way that child marriage affects female education is by causing girls to drop out of school in preparation for their marriages or their pregnancies.

This choice reflects a larger mentality where education for females is considered less valuable than marriage. It is a far more lucrative venture for families that consider their daughters to be liabilities. Once the girl is married, it can be hard for her to return to school, since she now has a family of her own that takes up most of her time.

Girls Not Brides is an organization focused on ending child marriage states that girls with no education are three times as likely to marry by 18 as those with a secondary or higher education.

In addition, over 60 percent of women ages 20-24 with no education were married before 18. Clearly, education is both a catalyst for and an unfortunate consequence of lowered rates of child marriage.

If current trends on child marriage continues; as many as 150 million more girls will be married in childhood by 2030, with devastating consequences for the whole world.

Educating girls at the secondary school level equips them with the ability to recognize when and whom they want to marry. It also ensures that they have skills that make them self-reliant financially and emotionally.

The African Union and the South Asia Initiative to End Violence against Children have launched initiatives to end child marriage and give support to married girls. Other countries are developing national action plans to end child marriage, in partnership with civil society along with United Nations agencies and the girls themselves.

Child marriage violates girls’ rights to health, education and opportunity. It exposes girls to violence throughout their lives, and traps them in a cycle of poverty. Child marriage is fueled by gender inequality, poverty, traditions, and insecurity. Child marriages appear to be different from one community to the next. Solutions must be local and forces relating to the circumstances that brought about child marriages should be ended.

Globally, the rates of child marriage are slowly declining but the progress isn't happening fast enough.

This problem don’t seem to be ending in Canada or the United States soon enough.

The Canadian government’s foreign policy includes efforts to end child marriage abroad but one researcher says it’s “insincere” because thousands of legal child marriages have occurred here in Canada over the past two decades.

Canadians need to re-think the idea that the practice only takes place in foreign countries, McGill University assistant professor Alissa Koski told CTVNews.ca during a phone interview;

According to her research as many as 3,382 marriage licenses involving minors between the ages of 16 and 18 were issued in Canada between 2000 and 2018. This was based on data from provinces' vital statistics offices, which issue marriage certificates. Some of the reasons may be because of pregnancy. I don’t believe that pregnant girls should marry the boy or man who may her pregnant. Marriages brought about by pressure by third parties is most impropriate.

Child marriages have happened in every province and territory over the past 20 years. It’s not limited to any one part of the country. The province of Ontario issued the most licences (because it is the most populous province) for so-called child marriages, with 1,353. Alberta issued 791, Quebec had 590 and British Columbia had 429 such marriage licences. This doesn’t include common-law marriages that involve minors or cases where Canadian children have been taken out of a country, married and returned.  The vast majority of youth getting married (85 per cent) are young girls with them typically marrying at much younger ages than boys, and who go on to wed “substantially older” spouses.

Marriage laws vary among the provinces but the legal age is generally set at 18. But in 2015, the federal Civil Marriage Act was amended to permit the marriage of youth 16 or older, if they have their parents’ consent or a court order. Between 20oo an 2018, there were 3,382 married children between the ages of 16 and 18in Canada.

A child who is under 18 years of age is still legally considered a child and we all know that children that young  are not mature enough to be married at such an early age It is  a strange anomaly  that provinces restrict minors from smoking and drinking but allow them to legally  get married.

Canada has all kinds of protections in place (or children before the age of 18. We assume that these kids are not capable of renting an apartment independently, buying a pack of cigarettes, that they just don’t have the maturity to make those decisions. And yet we’re assuming they are mature hen it comes to marriage.”

It is time for the lawmakers in Canada to smarten up when it comes to child marriages.

Thousands of requests by men to bring in child and adolescent brides to live in the United States were approved over the past decade, according to government data obtained by The Associated Press. In one case, a 49-year-old man applied for admission for a 15-year-old girl. The approvals are legal. The Immigration and Nationality Act does not set minimum age requirements for the person making the request or for that person's spouse or fiancée. By contrast, to bring in a parent from overseas, a petitioner has to be at least 21 years old

And in weighing the tup when citizens of the United States who want  petitions, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services goes by whether the marriage is legal in the spouse or fiancée’s home country and then whether the marriage would be legal in the state where the petitioner lives.

This raises an interesting question. If an American state permits a man to bring his underage wife into the state, then why can’t a citizen of that state marry an underage girl. To deny tHeir request of the citizens, conflicts with the American’s right to equal treatment.  Unfortunately, the American governments both federal and state are still sanctioning certain child marriages.