Child marriage and intimate partner violence: a comparative study of 34 countries

Objectives

The study aims to test whether young women who married as children face a higher risk of experiencing physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) in the past year compared with those who married as adults. Using comparable DHS data from 34 countries, it seeks to generate global, regional and country-level estimates, distinguish risks between very early marriage (<15) and marriage at 15-17, and assess how consistently child marriage predicts IPV across diverse contexts.

Findings

The analysis shows that child marriage is strongly associated with increased risk of recent IPV. Among women aged 20–24, 29% of those married as children reported past-year physical and/or sexual IPV, compared with 20% of adult-married women. This association remains significant after adjusting for education, wealth and residence. Very early marriage (<15) and marriage at 15–17 both independently raise the odds of past-year IPV, with adjusted odds ratios of 1.41 and 1.42, respectively. The pattern persists across older age cohorts, indicating that higher IPV risk continues into adulthood.

However, the strength of the association varies substantially across regions and countries. Stronger and more consistent associations appear in South Asia and East Asia/Pacific, while sub-Saharan Africa shows marked heterogeneity. In nine countries, marriage before 15 is significantly associated with past-year IPV, and in 19 countries marriage between 15–17 carries elevated risk. Physical IPV shows stronger and more consistent links with child marriage than sexual IPV.

Recommendations

The study underscores that reducing IPV requires direct action to prevent child marriage and to strengthen protections for girls already in child marriages. Governments and partners should invest in interventions that address the structural drivers of early marriage, gender inequality, poverty, lack of education, and harmful norms, while also ensuring that married adolescents have access to legal protection, safe reporting mechanisms, economic support, and services that help them leave abusive relationships if they choose to. Greater research is needed in regions with high child marriage prevalence but limited IPV evidence, particularly across sub-Saharan Africa, to inform effective policy and programme design