Mauritania

37% of girls in Mauritania are marry or enter a union before age 18 and 18% before age 15 – that is 400,000 girls married before 18.

2% of boys in Mauritania are marry before 18.

Child marriage is most prevalent in rural areas and Guidimagha (where 55% of women aged 20-49 were married before the age of 18), Assaba (44%) and Hodh Echargui (40%).

Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that women and girls are somehow inferior to men and boys. In Mauritania, child marriage is also driven by:

● Poverty: Girls from Mauritania’s poorest households are almost twice as likely to marry young as those living in the richest households.

● Level of education: 43% of women with no education were married as children, compared to only 22% who had completed secondary school or higher.

● Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting (FGM/C): 67% of women and girls in Mauritania have undergone FGM. FGM/C reportedly makes it possible for girls aged eight and nine to marry because it is commonly seen as a marker of adulthood and readiness for marriage.

● Harmful practices: Some young girls are fed high calorie diets and animal growth hormones to accelerate puberty and increase their marriage prospects, as obesity is typically regarded as a sign of beauty in Mauritania. The practice – known as leblouh, gavage or force-feeding – seriously jeopardises the health of girls. One child bride died in 2013 after she was force fed from the age of seven and then married off to a man who was 10 years older than her father. Local organisation L’Association des Femmes Chefs de Famille has handled 140 cases of child brides subjected to gavage and chemical gavage.

● Slavery: Despite slavery being made illegal in 1981, thousands of people from minority Haratine and Afro-Mauritanian groups still live as domestic servants and child brides. According to local NGOs, temporary siriya marriages continue to take place between Mauritanian girls and wealthy Middle Eastern men, particularly in Saudi Arabia.

● Violence against girls: Under the practice of maslaha, or “kinship marriages”, young girls are being married off to cousins in efforts to protect them from sexual violence.

● COVID-19: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many girls have been increasingly at risk of school dropout, child marriage, violence, exploitation and abuse. Faced with extreme weather, limited access to water and hygiene facilities remains challenging for most of the population. Several localities continue to suffer the consequences of the floods of the year 2020 which caused the destruction of crops and fields. Children affected by severe acute malnutrition, and pregnant and lactating women have been cited as particularly vulnerable to the social and economic impacts of the pandemic.

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

The government is due to submit a Voluntary National Review at the 2024 High Level Political Forum.

The government reported progress towards this target during its Voluntary National Review at the 2019 High Level Political Forum. It also stated that because of population growth, the number girls at risk of this practice will continue to increase. Therefore, efforts are needed to reach the targets related to addressing child marriage by 2030, and the legal framework for gender-based violence, including child marriage and genital mutilation, needs to be improved and strengthened.

In 2014, Mauritania signed a joint statement at the Human Rights Council calling for a resolution on child marriage.

Mauritania ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, 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 in 2001, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage. Upon its accession to CEDAW, Mauritania entered a general reservation to those provisions which were contrary to Islamic Sharia and not in accordance with the Constitution of Mauritania. In 2014, Mauritania partially withdrew its general reservation, but continues to apply the reservations to Articles 13(a) and 16.

In 2018, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed serious concerns about the continued high prevalence of child marriage in Mauritania. The Committee recommended Mauritania to expedite legislative reforms aimed at prohibiting child marriage without exception and conduct awareness-raising programmes to change public perception.

During its 2023 review, the CEDAW Committee recommended that the government ensure that all women have access to justice and representation in cases concerning gender-based violence such as rape and sexual assault, child marriage and other harmful practices. The Committee also raised concerns regarding the exceptions to the legal minimum age of marriage under the Personal Status Code 2001 and urged that the government increase the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 years for both boys and girls, criminalize and prosecute any persons who facilitate child marriage.

During its 2014 review, the CEDAW Committee raised concerns about discriminatory provisions in the Personal Status Code enabling the authorisation of marriages for girls under the age of 18 by their guardians.

During its 2020 Universal Periodic Review, the government raised that it had established a National Commission to End Forced Marriage and Child Marriage. The Commission developed and implemented an action plan that was based on awareness-raising. In an effort to improve educational enrolment of girls, the government also initiated campaigns to end child marriage, school buses to and from rural areas, accessibility of nutritional programmes, tutoring of school subjects, internet and running water

During its 2015 Universal Periodic Review, Mauritania supported recommendations to develop a comprehensive national strategy and laws for combatting child marriage.

In 2005 Mauritania ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, including Article 21 regarding the prohibition of child marriage.

In 2005 Mauritania 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.

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

Mauritania is a focus country of the Strategic Technical Assistance for Research (STAR) Initiative that is supported by the UNICEF-UNFPA Global Programme to End Child Marriage. The main aim of the STAR initiative is to provide comprehensive technical research on ending child marriage and FGM/C, through capacity building workshops, strategic research and evidence synthesis.

The Sahel Women Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD), implemented by the government of Mauritania with technical support from UNFPA, is working to empower women and girls by keeping girls in school, among other interventions including a communication campaign. The campaign gears toward behaviour change, raising awareness about the harmful effects of child marriage and adolescent pregnancy, and attracting support from imams and religious leaders.

In early 2021 UNICEF in Mauritania reported working through partnerships with religious leaders, including 65 imams to develop religious arguments to reinforce the promotion of children's rights and have contributed to regulating child marriage and the enrolment and retention of girls in school during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Child Helpline run by AMSME has also provided referral services to victims of domestic violence and child marriage.

Under the Personal Status Code Act 2001 the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years with no exceptions. Article 9 and 10 of the Act mention that an adult woman cannot be married without both her consent and thepresence of her guardian (weli) who must be male and Muslim, and that the silence of the woman is taken as consent.