Eritrea

According to the most recent available government data from 2010, 41% of girls in Eritrea marry before age 18 and 13% marry before age 15.

2% of Eritrean boys marry before age 18.

Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that women and girls are somehow inferior to men and boys.

In Eritrea, child marriage is exacerbated by:

● Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting (FGM/C): FGM/C is used to protect girls from losing their virginity or having children out of wedlock, which is seen to disqualify them from being “marriageable”. 83% of women have undergone FGM/C according to data between 2012-2020. In a 2012 study, 67% of respondents felt that FGM/C helped them to gain social acceptance and find better marriage partners.

● Gender norms: Traditionally Eritrean mothers have trained their daughters to take on the role of housewives by learning to cook, clean, fetch water and make fire from as young as seven. According to local organisation Voice of Eritrean Women, girls are also expected to speak softly and comply with strict gender expectations. If they violate these norms, they are often deemed ‘unfit’ for marriage.

● Pre-marital sex: There are strong patriarchal ideals of purity and child marriage is sometimes used in the misguided belief to protect girls from engaging in pre-marital sex. This is seen as essential in ensuring better marriage opportunities and family stability. If a girl is found to have lost her virginity, her wedding is likely to be cancelled and she becomes stigmatised by her community.

● Escape: Some girls reportedly marry in order to avoid enrolment at the Sawa Military Training Centre and national service.

Eritrea 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 Voluntary National Review at the 2022 High Level Political Forum. In this review, the government raised that the adolescent pregnancy rates have been declining since 2019, and this is attributed to investing in girls’ education, the rising age of marriage, the protection of girls’ rights and progressive and changing traditional attitudes. In Eritrea, basic education is compulsory for both boys and girls. Therefore, child marriage legislation is strictly enforced in order to ensure that both boys and girls remain in education and gender disparities are reduced.

Eritrea co-sponsored the 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 UN General Assembly resolutions on child, early and forced marriage, and the 2013 Human Rights Council resolution on child, early and forced marriage. In 2014, Eritrea signed a joint statement at the Human Rights Council calling for a resolution on child marriage.

Eritrea ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994, which the Committee on the Rights of the Child has interpreted to recommend the establishment of a minimum age of marriage of 18, and acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1995, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

During its 2014 Universal Periodic Review, Eritrea agreed to examine recommendations to continue efforts to abolish child marriage.

During its 2019 Universal Periodic Review, Eritrea agreed to examine recommendations to enhance measures to end child and forced marriage, namely by adopting a comprehensive strategy.

During its 2020 review, the CEDAW Committee acknowledged the government’s efforts towards eliminating harmful practices through various institutional policy framework, steering committee to address child marriage, FMG/C and gender-based violence, policy guidelines on maternal, adolescent and child health and a national action plan on gender. The Committee expressed that the impact of the government’s mandatory national service means that women and girls seek to avoid it by dropping out of school, child marriage, fleeing the country or becoming pregnant.

In June 2016, the government launched the African Union Campaign to End Child Marriage.

In 1999 Eritrea ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, including Article 21 regarding the prohibition of child marriage. In 2012 Eritrea signed, but has not yet ratified, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, including Article 6 which sets the minimum age for marriage as 18.

In 2019, at the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25, Eritrea committed to end all forms of violence against women and girls, including early, child and forced marriage.

Eritrea is a partner country of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).

In 2016, the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the National Union of Eritrean Women, UNICEF, the African Union and UNFPA, launched a national campaign to end child marriage in Eritrea, in which delegates committed to ensuring legal instruments were enforced to end the practice.

In 2017 a National Steering Committee (NSC) encompassing the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the National Union of Eritrean Women was established with the aim to coordinate activities and create functional synergy in addressing the common issues that relate to harmful practices and violence against women, including child marriage. The NSC coordinates all previously existing anti- FGM/C and child marriage committees at regional, subregional and administrative villages.

As reported to the CEDAW Committee in 2019, since 2015 these anti- FGM/C and child marriage committees have conducted more than 400 meetings to develop action plans and organised campaigns on traditional harmful practices targeting over 300,000 citizens.

The government is also working to tackle FGM/C and gender parity in elementary and middle education in order to improve the status of girls in Eritrean society and decrease the incidence of child marriage. The Ministry of Education is conducting awareness-raising on the importance of sending girls to school, whilst also supporting married girls to complete their education.

The Ministry of Labour and Human Welfare has previously organised training workshops for sub-regional social workers and has established Child Well-being Committees with the objective of expediting implementation of the Child Rights Convention and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

Eritrea’s National Education Sector Plan 2018-2022 aims to improve quality of learning in primary and secondary education by expanding early childhood education, improving teacher qualifications, and by bringing more out-of-school children into schools. The plan further identifies girls’ education and special needs education as cross cutting areas for action.

The revised Marriage Law 1991 sets 18 years as the minimum legal age of marriage. However girls may be given dispensation to marry at 16 years if they are pregnant or have already given birth to a child.

In addition, customary laws, which differ from place to place and may not mention age restrictions for marriage, frequently take precedence over civil laws.