Jamaica

8% of girls in Jamaica are married or in a union before their 18th birthday and 1% before the age of 15.

Child, Early, and Forced Marriage and Unions (CEFMU) rates are consistent in both rural and urban parts of Jamaica.

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 Jamaica,CEFMU child marriage is driven by:

Poverty: 15% of women from Jamaica’s poorest households were married or in a union before the age of 18, compared to 4% from the richest households.

Level of education:11% of women with no education or primary level education were married or in a union as children, compared to only 3% who had completed tertiary education.

Religion: In late 2019, reports emerged about children being rescued from the compound of a cult in St. James following allegations of child marriages and human trafficking.

Jamaica has committed to eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The government has not submitted a Voluntary National Review in any High Level Political Forum to date.

Jamaica co-sponsored the 2013 Human Rights Council resolution on child, early and forced marriage.

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

Jamaica, 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.

Jamaica ratified the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women (known as the Belém do Pará Convention) in 2005. 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.

Jamaica, 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.

Jamaica 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. Spotlight Initiative invested 8 million EUR to Jamaica to support efforts to end sexual abuse, domestic violence, intimate partner violence and corporal punishment. .

Jamaica is a pathfinding country for the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children.

In late 2019, a senior member of the Jamaican clergy, Bishop Conrad Pitkin, called out parents who allow their daughters to be married early and warned them that young brides can become victims of human trafficking.

Under the Marriage Act 1979 the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years. However, individuals can marry at 16 years with parental consent.