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.
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