Sweden

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

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

There is limited information on child marriage in Sweden, but available evidence suggests that it exacerbated by:

Migration: A 2016 report by the Swedish Migration Agency identified 132 underage asylum seekers who stated they were married when they arrived in Sweden. Most came from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. There is also anecdotal evidence of girls with a migrant background being sent back to their parents’ home countries to be married off.

Sweden has committed to eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The government submitted a 2021 Voluntary National Review at the High Level Political Forum. This review highlighted that in 2019 the rules for recognising foreign child marriages were tightened. In 2020, the government introduced a specific child marriage ban to protect children who are at risk of child marriage and female genital mutilation.

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

Sweden co-sponsored the following Human Rights Council resolutions: the 2013 procedural 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, Sweden also signed a joint statement at the Human Rights Council calling for a resolution on child marriage.

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

Sweden ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, which sets a minimum age of marriage of 18, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1980, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

Sweden 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.

At the London Girl Summit in July 2014, the government signed a charter committing to end child marriage by 2020.

Sweden is a pathfinder country for the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children and in 2018 co-hosted the first Agenda 2030: End Violence Against Children Solutions Summit.

Ending child marriage, domestically and internationally, is a priority for the government of Sweden. The 10-year National strategy to prevent and combat men’s violence against women, adopted in 2016, includes several measures directly concerning children, including an evaluation of the 2014 legislative amendment on forced marriage and child marriage.

The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has been working in recent years to improve guidance for municipalities receiving children who had entered into marriage abroad.

In the Sweden’s feminist foreign policy Handbook, the government mentioned its work in championing the inclusion of the sexual reproductive health and reproductive rights of women and girls in the General Assembly’s resolution on child, early and forced marriage. In the Strategy for Sweden’s cooperation with UNICEF (2018–2022), Sweden committed to actively continue working with UNICEF towards ending child marriage and other harmful customs.

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) has funded different projects with a focus on ending and preventing child marriage: between 2016 and 2019 funded the Rapariga Biz programme, led by the Mozambique government with support from UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and UNESCO, which contributed to a reduction in child marriage and pregnancy among girls. In 2018 Sweden also funded a study on child marriage in Afghanistan.

The minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years for girls and boys, with no exceptions.

In addition, since 1 January 2019, child marriages conducted abroad are not recognised in Sweden.