Mauritius

There is no publicly available government data on child marriage in Mauritius.

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

There is very limited information on child marriage in Mauritius.

Mauritius 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.

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

Mauritius acceded to 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 acceded to 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.

In 2018, the CEDAW Committee expressed concerns about lack of comprehensive data on child marriage. The Committee recommended Mauritius to effectively prevent all forms of child marriage and conduct awareness-raising campaigns to challenge cultural attitudes that legitimise child marriage.

During its 2023 review, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child acknowledged that the revision of the Children’s Act 2020 revised the definition of a child as any person under the age of 18. Article 145 to 148 of the Civil Code were also repealed which had previously permitted exceptions to marriage under the age of 18. The Committee recommended that the government take measures to increase capacity building in judicial and administrative roles in order to ensure that the best interests of the child are taken into consideration, particularly in child custody cases in the context of polygamous and unregistered religious marriages.

During Mauritius’ 2015 review, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern that child marriages are still extensively granted in contravention of the law, and that the Child Protection Act defines a child as any unmarried person under the age of 18. It urged the government to strictly enforce the minimum age of marriage and carry out comprehensive awareness-raising programmes on the negative impact of child marriage among parents, teachers and community leaders.

In its 2018 Universal Periodic Review, Mauritius agreed to review recommendations to strengthen efforts to combat child abuse in all its forms, by adopting and implementing the Children’s Bill, with a specific focus on fighting against child, early and forced marriage.

In 1992 Mauritius ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, including Article 21 regarding the prohibition of child marriage.

In 2017 Mauritius ratified the Protocol to 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.

Mauritius is one of 20 countries which committed to ending child marriage by the end of 2020 under the Ministerial Commitment on comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services for adolescents and young people in Eastern and Southern Africa.

In 2019, at the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25, the Government of Mauritius committed to zero sexual and gender-based violence, including zero child, early and forced marriage.

Under the Civil Code 1990 the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years. The proclamation by the government of the Children’s Act 2020 on 14 December 2021, together with the Children’s Court Act 2020 and the Child Sex Offender Register Act 2020, were intended to bring down the number of reported child abuse cases in Mauritius.

The Children’s Act 2020 also provides for the complete abolition of child marriage and consequently the concept of "émancipation par mariage", thereby repealing existing provisions of the Mauritian Civil Code providing for exceptional circumstances in which children above the age of 16 were permitted to marry. It is now also illegal for children to live in "concubinage".