Are existing laws on child, early and forced marriages and unions working for adolescent girls and young women? Position statement and recommendations

Summary & Objectives

The position statement seeks to examine whether existing laws on child, early and forced marriages and unions are effectively protecting adolescent girls and young women and advancing their rights. It aims to synthesize emerging evidence on the real-world impacts of these laws, highlight ways in which they may cause harm when poorly designed or implemented, and motivate more nuanced research and advocacy on legal reform.

Findings

The statement finds that evidence on the impact of CEFMU laws is limited and, where available, often shows little or no reduction in prevalence and in some cases clear negative consequences. In Mexico, bans on under-18 marriage reduced formal marriages but drove a shift into informal unions, leaving girls with fewer legal protections and no gains in schooling or pregnancy outcomes. In contexts such as Egypt and Malawi, punitive approaches pushed marriages underground, obscuring the scale of the problem and limiting support.

In India and Pakistan, criminal provisions have been weaponised by families to punish consensual unions and have created financial and social harms for girls when spouses are imprisoned or fined. Across multiple settings, girls face violence when they invoke the law, barriers to accessing justice, and reduced access to sexual and reproductive health services where marriage and sexual consent ages are conflated and mandatory reporting is enforced. Overall, the statement concludes that current age-based legal templates are often ill-suited, do not address root causes, and can exacerbate vulnerability when not embedded in comprehensive, well-resourced systems.

Summary

This position statement reviews emerging evidence on how laws addressing child, early and forced marriages and unions affect the lives and rights of adolescent girls and young women. It highlights that while many countries have adopted 18 as the minimum legal age of marriage without exceptions, there has been little systematic assessment of how these laws function in practice. The statement synthesises case examples from multiple countries to show that legal reforms have often failed to reduce prevalence and, in some contexts, have driven unions underground, shifted girls into informal unions, exposed them to violence, reduced social protections and limited access to sexual and reproductive health services. It argues that current age-focused legal templates are frequently ineffective, ill-suited to context and can inadvertently cause harm when not accompanied by comprehensive, well-resourced systems that address underlying drivers of CEFMU.

Purpose

The purpose of the statement is to urge advocates, policymakers and funders to rethink prevailing legal advocacy on CEFMU and to ground future efforts in a more nuanced understanding of how laws operate in girls’ lives. It calls for a shift from assuming that raising the legal age of marriage is inherently protective towards critically examining implementation, enforcement, interactions with social norms and related laws on sexuality and consent. The document seeks to catalyse a new research and advocacy agenda that centres the voices and experiences of adolescent girls and young women, demands rigorous analysis of the real-world impacts of existing and proposed laws, and situates legal reform within broader, intentionally designed systems that address the root causes of child, early and forced marriages and unions.

Audience

The target audience includes:

• Policymakers and legislators responsible for drafting, reforming and implementing laws related to child, early and forced marriages and unions.
• Government agencies and justice-sector actors, including law enforcement, child protection authorities and judicial officers involved in enforcement and interpretation of these laws.
• Advocacy organisations and civil society groups working on child marriage, gender equality, adolescent rights and legal reform.
• Researchers and evidence-generating institutions focused on legal, gender and adolescent wellbeing studies.
• Funders and development partners supporting programmes and advocacy on child marriage, girls’ rights and legal systems.
• Practitioners and programme implementers designing or delivering interventions that interact with legal and policy frameworks affecting adolescent girls.