Ecuador

22% of girls in Ecuador marry or enter a union before the age of 18 and 4% marry or enter a union before the age of 15.

In Ecuador, many unions are informal rather than a formal marriage.

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 Ecuador, CEFMU is exacerbated by:

● Poverty: Many families, particularly those living in rural areas with limited educational and economic opportunities, marry off their daughters in return for economic payments.

● Harmful practices: According to a 2016 study by CARE, unmarried women are frequently stigmatised and girls as young as 12, especially among indigenous communities, marry or enter into unions arranged by the families as part of negotiations with other indigenous communities.

● Gender-based violence: As reported by the same 2016 study, many girls marry or enter into unions as a way to escape violence in the house.

● Adolescent pregnancy: Many girls marry or enter into unions when they become pregnant, even when it is the result of sexual violence, as a way to protect their honour and secure a future for the baby. Between 2015 and 2020, for girls between the ages of 15-19, the birth rate in Ecuador was 58 per 1000 girls.

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

The government submitted a 2020 Voluntary National Review at the High Level Political Forum, however there was no mention of child marriage. The government has not submitted a Voluntary National Review in any High Level Political Forum since 2020.

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

Ecuador has also co-sponsored the UN Human Rights Council resolutions on child, early and forced marriage in 2013, 2019, 2021 and 2023.

Ecuador 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 1981, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

During its 2021 review, the CEDAW Committee recommended that the government raise awareness among religious and community leaders on the harmful effects of child marriage on health, education and life choices.

During its 2017 review, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that the government adopt a comprehensive strategy to raise awareness among society and children about the minimum age of marriage set at 18 years of age.

Ecuador, 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 respected evolving capacities and progressive autonomy.

Ecuador 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.

Ecuador, 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 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.

In November 2015, UN Women, UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNICEF and the Pan American Health Organization launched a regional programme on preventing violence against women and girls in Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico. The programme promotes changes in law to eliminate all exceptions to the minimum age of marriage.

Ecuador 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 2021, the Spotlight Initiative prioritised reducing femicide and eliminating barriers to the implementation of the Comprehensive Organic law to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women. The initiative was able to make progress on:

Providing technical assistance to the National Assembly, enabling the inclusion of international human rights standards and the deliberation of the Law on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy in cases of rape.

The Regulation of the Ordinance Reforming the Rule for the Prevention, Integral Attention and Eradication of Violence against Women in Cuenca was drafted. This regulation allocated more resources for the prevention and attention to VAWG&F through municipal programmes.

Comprehensive reparation policy for VAWG&F and relevant stakeholders have the capacity to define and adopt measures according to the needs of the victims of VAWG&F and their families.

#EseTipoNo (Not this guy) communication campaign used audio, visual and printed material on local radio stations, billboards and screens.

In March 2022, Flores en el Aire (Flowers in the air), a digital mapping tool, was launched with the support of the Spotlight Initiative and UNDP. This allowed families of victims of VAWG and femicide to digitally explore memories and testimonies through audio files, photos and virtual maps showing where these women lived, worked and spent their free time. The main aim of this tool is to humanise the victims and create a space for people to collectively mourn.

The minimum age of marriage in Ecuador is 18 years for women and men, with no exceptions.

The legal minimum age of marriage in Ecuador is established under Article 83 of the Civil Code, Title III of Marriage.

In 2015, the National Assembly approved a reform of the Civil Code and raised the legal minimum age from 12 for girls and 14 for boys to 18 years for both with no exceptions.