Tuvalu

1.8% of girls in Tuvalu marry before the age of 18.

1.7% of boys marry before the age of 18.

14% of women between the ages of 20-24 living in rural areas were married before the age of 18 in comparison to 6% living in urban areas.

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

In Tuvalu, child marriage is also driven by:

Level of education: Girls with a lower level of education tend to have a lower median age at first marriage than those with a higher level of education. In Tuvalu, 4.4% of girls who marry before the age of 18 have completed secondary school.

Poverty: 1.6% of girls from the poorest households are married before the age of 18, in comparison to 2% of girls from the richest households.

Harmful practices: According to Tuvalu customs, marriage is usually arranged between the families of the boy and the girl. The practice of Potu lama involves young men being consulted by elders of the island to seek approval for marriage. Once a girl’s family agrees, he can marry the girl of his choice. If rejected, the elders approach the parents of other girls. Such marriages become the “responsibility” of the community and are used to establish links of kinship in relation to land rights. All this makes it difficult for some girls to refuse to marry or to negotiate the terms of their own marriage.

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

The government submitted a Voluntary National Review at the 2022 High Level Political Forum; however, there was no mention of child marriage.

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

Tuvalu acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1995, which the Committee on the Rights of the Child has interpreted to recommend the establishment of a minimum age of marriage of 18, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1999, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

In 2013 the CEDAW Committee expressed concern about forced marriages in Tuvalu’s outer islands and called for the government to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18. In 2019, the CEDAW Committee requested further information on the legal, policy and awareness-raising measures taken to address all forms of discrimination against children, particularly girls.

Regionally, the Spotlight Pacific Regional Initiative builds on existing commitments across 16 Pacific Island countries, including Tuvalu.

Under the Marriage Amendment Act 2015, the legal age of marriage is 21 years. However, individuals aged 18-20 years can marry with the written parental consent or with the consent of the Registrar-General in exceptional cases.

It should be noted that customary marriages are separate to those marriages under the Marriage Act.