Brazil

26% of Brazilian girls marry or enter a union before age 18 and 6% are marry or enter a union before age 15.

In Brazil, Child, Early, and Forced Marriage and Unions (CEFMU) take the form of legal, formally registered civil or religious marriages, informal unions or cohabitation. Distinctions between the three are often blurred.

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

In Brazil, CEFMU is also driven by:

● Adolescent pregnancy: Pregnancy has been cited as a main influencing factor to CEFMU in Brazil and is strongly associated with the family’s desire to protect their honour. Some girls are pressured by their mothers and grandmothers to marry if they start to engage in pre-marital sex. Losing virginity is sometimes associated with ser mais nada (“becoming nothing"). Between 2015 to 2020, the adolescent birth rate amongst girls between the ages of 15 to 19 years old was 49 births per 1000 girls. In 2019, there were approximately 419,255 babies registered to adolescent mothers; the highest incidence was in the North-eastern region of Brazil, with 143,568 babies.

● Violence against women and girls: According to a 2019 study, some girls in Brazil marry or enter into unions as a way to find protection in contexts of high levels of state- and gang-controlled urban violence. There are also reports of girls being married to drug traffickers operating in low-income favelas.

● Gender norms: Some girls see marriage as one of the only ways they can influence their life and seek freedom. Sometimes a girl’s choice to leave home and marry is seen as an act of rebellion from parental repression, which in turn is motivated by their concern over the family reputation and the worry that their daughters would become pregnant outside of marriage. Some girls and boys view marriage as a passage to adulthood. This is balanced with a tension whereby girls take on adult responsibilities and raise children while also still “playing with dolls” and “acting in childish ways”.

● Religion: Evangelical, Protestant and Catholic teachings drive gender norms related to virginity, pregnancy and abortion which enable and are sometimes used to justify CEFMU in Brazil.

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

The government is due to submit a Voluntary National Review at the 2024 High Level Political Forum.

Brazil co-sponsored the 2013 Human Rights Council resolution on child, early and forced marriage, the 2017 resolution recognising the need to address child, early and forced marriage in humanitarian contexts, and the 2023 resolution on ending and preventing forced marriage.

Brazil co-sponsored the 2016 and 2018 UN General Assembly resolutions on child, early and forced marriage.

Brazil 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 in 1984, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

During its 2017 Universal Periodic Review, Brazil agreed to consider taking all necessary measures to effectively eliminate child marriage.

Brazil, 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.

Brazil ratified the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women (known as the Belém do Pará Convention) in 1995. 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.

Brazil, 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 governments on women’s rights and autonomy and gender equality in 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.

Brazil is a Pathfinder country for the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children.

At the 2014 London Girl Summit, the government signed a charter committing to end child marriage by 2020.

Despite the prevalence of CEFMU in Brazil, the problem has been absent in national research and policy-making agendas. A lack of reporting of informal unions and cohabitation makes a systematic review and response to CEFMU extremely challenging.

In August 2020, the government published an e-book titled “Facing online violence against adolescents in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.” This booklet aims to raise awareness on violence against women and girls as well as educating girls on violence in the digital space, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2019, the government added Article 8(a) to Law n. 13,798 which established a National Week of Teenage Pregnancy Prevention. This campaign takes places on the 1st of February every year and aims to raise awareness on adolescent pregnancy and preventative measures with the slogan "Everything has its proper time.”

While 18 years is the minimum age of marriage, under the Civil Code 2002, both girls and boys who are 16 years old can marry with the consent from either parents or their legal representatives.

In 2019, the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro approved a law change to the Civil Code, after being passed in Brazil’s National Congress and Senate, which prohibits any form of marriage of children under 16 years old. Previously, exemptions existed for minors under the age of 16 to be married off in the case of pregnancy or to avoid a criminal sentence for statutory rape.