Child marriage and gender
Child marriage is rooted in gender inequality and violates girls’ rights to health, education and economic opportunity. Here you will find an overview of the key facts, links, impacts and transformative approaches to end child marriage and achieve gender equality.
Ending child marriage is crucial to gender equality
Gender-transformative approaches
Ending child marriage means ending gender inequality in all public and private spaces. It means transforming gendered norms and rebalancing power so girls and women can enjoy equal status with boys and men. Approaches must be rights-based, comprehensive, multisectoral, intersectional and have girls at their centre.
Gender-based violence
Around 1 in 3 girls and women experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime.[v] Child marriage is a manifestation of this violence, putting girls and women at increased risk of sexual, physical and psychological violence and related outcomes – like poor health and depression – throughout their lives.
Bodily autonomy, health and rights
Girls who marry or cohabit as if married before the age of 18, are more likely to have early pregnancies, experience dangerous complications in pregnancy and childbirth, acquire HIV, and experience domestic violence. Ending child marriage will improve the health and rights of millions of girls, and their children.
Economic justice and rights
Girls may marry as children because of extreme poverty and gender norms that devalue and commodify them. Unequal access to education, economic opportunities and political participation can make them economically dependent throughout their lives. Ending child marriage will improve their productive and reproductive rights.
Gender equality and the SDGs
Governments across the world have committed to achieving 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The goals seek to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure we can all enjoy peace and prosperity. Goal 5 includes targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment, which will not be met unless we address child marriage.
Child marriage and humanitarian contexts
Humanitarian crises – including those caused by climate crisis – can increase gender and other inequalities and put girls at greater risk of child marriage. When food and livelihoods based on natural resources fail, families experiencing hardship may exchange daughters for assets, to reduce economic pressure or to protect them.
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