Georgia

14% of girls in Georgia are married before their 18th birthday and 1% of boys marry before the age of 18.

Georgia has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Eastern Europe. Child marriages in Georgia are particularly prevalent among religious minorities in the mountainous areas of Adjaria, and ethnic minorities (Azerbaijani, Georgian and Armenian) in the region of Kvemo Kartli, and in the Lagodekhi region. Child marriage rates are higher in rural areas of Georgia with 24% of women between the ages of 20-49 who are married before the age of 18 and 14% in urban areas. The regions of Georgia with the highest child marriage rates of women between the ages of 20-49 that are married before the age of 18 are Tblisi (12%), Shida Kartli (24%), Kvemo Kartli (25%), Adjara A.R (20%), Guria (23%), Imereti, Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti (17%) and Kakheti (24%).

Child marriages in Georgia are difficult to track because families often circumvent the law and do not officially register the marriage until a girl is old enough. Sometimes weddings are held in rural churches or mosques and couples are considered culturally or religiously married rather than by law.

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

In Georgia, child marriage is also driven by:

Level of education: School dropout rates remain high in Georgia. In 2019, more than 14,000 children dropped out of school and 10,433 children in 2018. Low value is placed on the education of girls in Georgia, and some families do not see why they should pursue education when their primary role will be that of a wife and mother. In 2018 in Georgia, for women between the ages of 20-49, 48% of women who have completed primary or lower secondary education are married before the age of 18, 29% have completed upper secondary, 14% vocational education and 8% higher education.

Poverty: Arranging an early child marriage is a desirable option for families living in poverty. These families believe that early marriage for their daughter means that they will be financially secure. A 2017 study found that economic challenges, aggravated by the high levels of unemployment, led many families to consider early marriages as the only suitable financial option available to girls. In 2018 the MICS survey indicated that 27% of women between the ages of 20-49 who were married before the age of 18 are in the poorest index quintile, 22% in the second poorest quintile and 17% in the middle quintile.

Gender inequality: The issue of child marriage in Georgia is strongly gendered. Among women between the ages of 20-24, 14% were married before the age of 18. In comparison to 0.5% of men married before the age of 18.

Pre-marital sex: Georgian society places high value on virginity. Child marriage is sometimes used to control female sexuality and to legalise intimate relationships.

Adolescent pregnancy: Limited information on sexual and reproductive health contributes to adolescent pregnancies in Georgia. According to a 2017 study, pregnant girls are more likely to marry to legitimise their pregnancies and avoid social disapproval. In 2018, 6% of child births were born to adolescent mothers between the ages of 15-19.

Ethnicity: Child marriage is reportedly common among national minorities, who sometimes get married between the ages of 14 and 15. Some girls from ethnic and religious minorities that do not speak Georgian struggle to integrate, and see marriage as an “unavoidable destiny”. In 2018, 16% of women between the ages of 20-49 who were married before the age of 18 were of Georgian ethnicity, 41% are Azerbaijani and 17% Armenian.

Bride kidnapping: Between January and September 2020, the Ministry of Interior registered 34 cases of bride kidnapping.

Social pressure: Some girls reportedly decide to marry in order to conform to certain expectations or because they fear social stigma regarding adolescent relationships and premarital sex.

Political context: Child marriage rates increased in the 1990s after the breakup of the Soviet Union, when unemployment and socio-economic hardship were common.

Georgia has committed to eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Georgian government submitted a 2020 Voluntary National Review at the High Level Political Forum. The review identified early school dropouts are one of the main reasons for early child marriage. It was noted that since the harmonization of the Istanbul Convention, Georgia has shown progress towards the elimination and legal prohibition of child marriage with a decrease in the number of marriages for girls under the age of 18 to zero.

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

Georgia 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, and the 2019 resolution on the consequences of child marriage. In 2014, Georgia also signed a joint statement at the Human Rights Council calling for a resolution on child marriage.

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

Georgia acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994, which sets a minimum age of marriage of 18, and acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1994, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

During its 2020 Universal Periodic Review, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children noted that child marriage is prevalent among ethnic, religious and rural communities in Georgia. It was also noted that child marriage is linked to issues such as lack of education, poverty, harmful practices, lack of information on sexual and reproductive health and the lack of integration of ethnic and religious communities. The CEDAW Committee recommended that the government ensure that the prohibitions to end child marriage are effectively implemented. During its 2015 Universal Periodic Review, Georgia supported recommendations to prevent child marriage among all ethnic groups.

Georgia has ratified the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (known as the Istanbul Convention), which considers forced marriage a serious form of violence against women and girls, and legally binds state parties to criminalise the intentional conduct of forcing an adult or child into a marriage.

Georgia is a pathfinding country of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children and a partner country of the Global Partnership for Education.

The Public Defender’s Office has noted that the social service response to ending child marriage was been fragmented and superficial. However, the Ministry of Human Rights Protection and Investigation Quality Monitoring department has participated in various activities to eliminate child marriage, to raise awareness on the issue and to provide timely police reports.

The government has also implemented and committed to the National Action Plan on Human Rights 2018-2020 which includes eliminating harmful practices such as child marriage. As a country, based on the International Conference on Population Development Programme of Action, Georgia has endeavoured to advance gender equality, advance reproductive health rights and eliminate gender based violence and harmful practices against women and girls.

The Ministries of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport; of Health, Social Affairs and Labour; and of Internal Affairs have taken steps to address child marriage. These ministries working alongside UNFPA revise national school curriculums to include topics such as gender equality, HIV/AIDS, puberty and reproductive health rights and harmful practices.

A 2014 report highlighted that child marriage is not taken particularly seriously at the state or societal level in Georgia, and is not currently a priority for child rights and women’s rights organisations.

In 2015, the Ministry of Education approved plans to establish a task force involving parents, education specialists, and psychologists to discuss the topic of child marriage, as well as to disseminate information about the impact of child marriage. The group reportedly undertook a mapping of the government’s Strategies and Action Plans relevant to addressing or integrating child marriage interventions, and made several relevant policy recommendations that were integrated in the Governmental Human Rights Action Plan for 2016-2017.

UNFPA led a peer education model that educated young people on sexual and reproductive health that reached more than 55,000 young people.

Under the Civil Code of Georgia 1997 the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years. Since the amendment to Article 1108 of the Civil Code in 2017, the legal minimum age of marriage is 18 with no exceptions. Prior to December 2015, girls between the ages of 16-17 could marry with parental or judicial consent.

Under Article 140 of the Criminal Code, cohabitation with a child under the age of 16 (the age of consent) is punishable for up to 3 years imprisonment. In 2014 amendments to the Criminal Code criminalised forced marriage of a child below the age of 18 years by two to four years imprisonment.

According to the Constitutional Treaty, marriages conducted by the Georgian Orthodox Church should be legally recognised; however, only civil marriages that take place at the Civil Registry of Georgia are legally recognised.