Argentina

16% of girls in Argentina marry or enter a union before age 18, and 2% marry before age 15.

According to a 2022 Hemispheric Report on Child, Early and Forced Marriage and Unions a 2016 study by Fundación para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer (FEIM), more than 340,000 adolescents aged between 14 and 19 years are either married or in union in Argentina. The number of adolescents in such marriages or unions has been rising since the 1990s.

In an FEIM study, it was found that child marriage is most prevalent in the localities of San Pedro (Misiones), Tapenagá (Chaco), Ramón Lista and Bermejo (Formosa) and General Manuel Belgrano including the North-eastern region of Argentina.

Child, Early, and Forced Marriage and Unions (CEFMU) are driven by gender inequality and the belief that women and girls are somehow inferior to men and boys.

There is very limited information on CEFMU in Argentina, but available studies suggest that it is driven by:

● Adolescent pregnancy: Between 2015 to 2020, the adolescent birth rate in Argentina was 41 births per 1,000 girls for girls between the ages of 15 to 19 years. The majority of them are not planned, but rather the result of sexual violence or due to unmet sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents. While many of the adolescent mothers were already cohabitating with the father, a pregnancy can prompt an early union or marriage.

● Gender norms and power dynamics: A 2016 study by Fundación para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer (FEIM) noted that the majority of girls were married or in a union with men who were between 15 and 20 years older than them. It was also reported that girls and teenage mothers typically have low self-esteem and lack the necessary resources to oppose physical, sexual or psychological violence. These elements put girls in a particularly vulnerable position both before and in the union or marriage.

● Poverty: UN Women has documented that the percentage of women suffering from food insecurity is 6.5 percentage points higher than that of men in Argentina

Argentina has committed to ending child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The government did not provide an update on progress towards this target during its Voluntary National Review at the 2020 and 2022 High Level Political Forum. The government is due to submit a Voluntary National Review at the 2024 High Level Political Forum.

Argentina co-sponsored the following Human Rights Council resolutions: the 2013 procedural resolution on child, early and forced marriage, the 2015 resolution on child, early and forced marriage, the 2017 resolution on recognising the need to address child, early and forced marriage in humanitarian contexts, the 2019 resolution on the consequences of child marriage, the 2021 resolution with a global focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child marriage, and the 2023 resolution on ending and preventing forced marriage. In 2014, Argentina also signed a joint statement at the Human Rights Council calling for a resolution on child marriage.

Argentina co-sponsored the 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 UN General Assembly resolutions on child, early and forced marriage.

Argentina ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, which the Committee on the Rights of the Child has interpreted to recommend the establishment of a minimum age of marriage of 18, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

In 2016 the CEDAW Committee recommended that Argentina collect data on child marriage and define clear criteria for assessing applications for the judicial authorisation of such marriages.

Argentina, as a member of the Organization of American States (OAS), is bound to the Inter American System of Human Rights, which recognises the right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and calls on governments to strengthen the response to address gender-based violence and discrimination, including early, forced and child marriage and unions, from a perspective that respects evolving capacities and progressive autonomy.

Argentina ratified the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women (known as the Belém do Pará Convention) in 1996. In 2016, the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI) recommended State Parties to review and reform laws and practices to increase the minimum age for marriage to 18 years for women and men.

Argentina, as a member of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), adopted the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development in 2013, which recognises the need to address the high levels of adolescent pregnancy in the region as usually associated with the forced marriage of girls. In 2016, the Montevideo Strategy for Implementation of the Regional Gender Agenda was also approved by the ECLAC countries. This Agenda encompasses commitments made by the governments on women’s rights and autonomy and gender equality during the last 40 years in the Regional Conferences of Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Agenda reaffirms the right to a life free of all forms of violence, including forced marriage and cohabitation for girls and adolescents.

Argentina is one of the countries where the Spotlight Initiative (a global, multi-year partnership between the European Union and the United Nations) is supporting efforts to end all forms of sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices against women and girls.

In Argentina, through the government’s First National Plan of Action for the Prevention, Assistance and Eradication of Violence against Women 2017-2019, the Spotlight Initiative project (April 2019 – November 2022) will be implementing key strategies under six pillars:

Legislation and policies

Institutional strengthening

Violence prevention

Accessible and quality services

Information management

Society organisations strengthened to work to eradicate gender-based violence and femicide

Argentina has taken steps in recent years to address adolescent pregnancy with the Plan Nacional de Prevención del Embarazo No Intencional en la Adolescencia and provide comprehensive sexual education to adolescents through the Programa Nacional de Educación Sexual Integral (ESI). However these policies do not explicitly address child marriage and early unions.

The minimum age for marriage in Argentina is 18 for girls and boys.

However, under the New Civil Code and Commerce of the Nation 2015, parties aged between 16-18 can be married with the permission of their legal representatives, and parties under 16 years can be married with judicial dispensation.