Dominican Republic

31% of women in the Dominican Republic are married or in a union before the age of 18 and 12% before their 15th birthday.

The Dominican Republic is the country with the highest prevalence of CEFMU in the Latin American and Caribbean region.

8% of men in the Dominican Republic are married or united before the age of 18.

CEFMU is most prevalent in El Valle (where 46.7% of women aged 20-24 entered a union before the age of 18), Cibao Noroeste (41.4%), Cibao Sur, and Yuma (38.1%).

Informal unions are common in the Dominican Republic, whereby girls and adolescents move into the homes of adult men and become their wives. These are difficult to report as they are not officially registered by civil registration systems, and place girls and adolescents in a vulnerable position with no legal protection.

A 2017 World Bank study shows that ending CEFMU in the Dominican Republic could result in more than USD1 billion in savings through additional wages earned by women.

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. In the Dominican Republic, CEFMU are exacerbated by:

Gender norms: Traditionally, women in the Dominican Republic are expected to become wives and mothers, while men are expected to provide for the family. Deeply rooted gender roles for women and men allow for a widespread tolerance for early marriage and unions, and result in adolescents girls as young as 15 being pressured into a marriage or an union as early as possible.

Poverty: Along with education, poverty is a crucial determinant of child marriage prevalence in the Dominican Republic. Of the women who did not attend secondary school, 67% of the poorest individuals living in rural areas entered a union before the age of 18 relative to 64% in urban areas. These numbers drop to 31% and 56% respectively for women from richer households with the same educational experience. Some parents marry off their daughters to reduce their perceived financial burden on the family.

Gender-based violence: Some girls and adolescents see marriage as an escape from domestic violence. However, an early marriage or union puts girls and adolescents at higher risk of being abused by their new husbands. Between 2017 – 2020 in the Experimental Survey on the Situation of Women, it was found that in 2018, 27% of women experienced violence, 11% economical violence, 24% psychological violence, 4% physical violence and 1% sexual violence that was inflicted on them by a current or former intimate partner.

Adolescent pregnancy: Due to poor sexual education and reproductive health services, pregnancy rates among young girls in the Dominican Republic are high. Among women aged 20-24 who married before the age of 15, 43% had already had three or more children by their first marriage or union. Many girls and adolescents feel social and familial pressure to marry when pregnant. Among women aged 20-24, 21% had given birth before the age of 18. Between 2015 – 2020, for women between the ages of 15-19, the adolescent birth rate was 54%.

Child trafficking: The Dominican Republic is known as a child sex tourism destination primarily by European and North American tourists. Traffickers often procure girls between the ages of 15 to 17. Between 2017 – 2020 in the Experimental Survey on the Situation of Women, it was found that there were 412 victims of trafficking in the Dominican Republic, 390 (95%) were women and 22 (5%) were men. Local reports indicated that traffickers were using child marriage to mask the trafficking of children for labour and sexual purposes.

COVID-19: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on some of the poorest households and has exacerbated the vulnerability of children in the Dominican Republic. Prior to the pandemic, the country had the highest rates of child marriage within the Latin American and Caribbean region and the pandemic has further exposed vulnerable families, pushing them further into poverty, gender-based violence, exclusion, child marriage and adolescent pregnancy. Save the Children estimates that by 2025, the impacts of COVID-19 will have put 73,400 more girls at risk of child marriage and 181,000 more girls ad risk of adolescent pregnancy in the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic has committed to eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Dominican Republic reported substantively on progress and the interventions being made to address child marriage and adolescent pregnancy in its 2018 Voluntary National Review at the High Level Political Forum, the mechanism through which countries report their progress in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. The government submitted a Voluntary National Review at the 2021 High Level Political Forum. As a part of the governments ‘low level of multidimensional poverty’ program aimed to reduce poverty through cash transfer schemes, support education and provide basic food are aimed towards the reduction of child marriage and early informal unions. This was further enhanced through the establishment of the Law 1-21 which came into effect on January 6th 2021 and aims to prohibit marriage for those under the age of 18.

The Dominican Republic co-sponsored the 2017 Human Rights Council resolution recognising the need to address child, early and forced marriage in humanitarian contexts.

Dominican Republic has signed the 2021 Human Rights Council resolution on Child, Early and Forced Marriage in times of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Dominican Republic also co-sponsored the 2013, 2014 and 2020 UN General Assembly resolutions on child, early and forced marriage.

The Dominican Republic ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, which sets a minimum age of marriage of 18, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1982, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

In 2013, the CEDAW Committee recommended that the Dominican Republic raise the legal minimum age of marriage for women to 18 and adopt effective measures to prevent early marriages.

During its 2019 Universal Periodic Review, the Dominican Republic agreed to review recommendations to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 years for both men and women and define child marriage as an offence in the Criminal Code.

Dominican Republic, 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 to governments to strengthen the respond to address gender-based violence and discrimination, including early, forced and child marriage and unions from a perspective that respected evolving capacities and progressive autonomy.

Dominican Republic 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.

Dominican Republic, 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.

Dominican Republic is one of the countries where UNICEF, UNFPA and UN Women are working together under the Latin America and the Caribbean Joint Programme for a Region Free of Child Marriage and Early Unions (2018-2021) to: align national frameworks with international standards, empower girls and adolescents, promote policies and services that address the drivers of child marriage and early unions and break the silence nationally and regionally.

The government of Dominican Republic, led by Margarita Cedeño, Vice-president of the Dominican Republic, has signed an agreement with UNICEF to tackle on child marriage and early unions.

As a first result, in 2019, the government carried out, with the support of UNICEF, a study on child marriage and early unions in the country with a view to inform public policies and programs to prevent and address these practices. The National Commission on Children and Adolescents, the main government agency responsible for addressing child marriage, works closely to support programs by UNICEF and Save the Children.

The Government Program 2020-2024 policy aims to develop social protection strategy interventions which include the reduction of adolescent pregnancy.

In addition, the National Plan to Reduce Adolescent Pregnancies (2019-2023) includes among its objectives and foreseen activities various awareness raising activities with families and communities to “denaturalise” child marriage, as well as the revision and adequation of the legal framework to prohibit child marriage, early unions, extreme poverty and social inequalities.

Since January 6th 2021, under Article 4, Law 1-21 (previously Article 144 of the Civil Code), the legal age of marriage in the Dominican Republic is 18 years with no exceptions.

Following years of political pressure, in January 2021, President Luis Abinader approved Law 1-21, a modification to the Civil Code, eliminates all legal grounds for child marriage, safeguards children and protects them from all forms of violence.