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 eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The government did not provide an update on progress towards this target during its Voluntary National Review at the 2019 High Level Political Forum.

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 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 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 Mauritius’ 2015 review, the UN Child Rights Committee 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 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 has 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".