ENSURING HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND PRODUCTIVE LIVES FOR GIRLS
Lyric Thompson, Director of Policy and Advocacy, International Center for Research on Women
Around the world, an estimated 15 million girls each year are married before they turn 18.
The reasons behind child marriage are complex, but some root causes include unequal gender norms, poverty, and the belief that marriage will protect girls from sexual assault or harassment. When girls are valued as little more than futures wives and mothers, their ability to make their own decisions about their future, including to continue school or to pursue a career of their choice, are extremely limited. As a result, when girls marry early, they face immense challenges in their everyday lives.The negative consequences of child marriage are clear. Child marriage puts a girl’s health at risk, affects her ability to pursue an education, and in many cases, impedes her legal and economic rights and empowerment. Child marriage ultimately hinders a girl’s aspirations and achievements. When girls marry before they’re ready, against their will, they often don’t have the ability to negotiate with their husbands on matters such as household duties or when and how many children to have. Research has found that women who were married as girls also have fewer economic opportunities and experience greater degrees of social isolation.
According to new research by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and the World Bank, for each year that a girl is married early, girls across sub-Saharan Africa are about four percentage points less likely to complete secondary school than those who remain unmarried, and those effects are even larger in Latin America and South Asia. We know from previous research that there is a strong positive correlation between education and women’s participation in the labor force, as well as the earnings they’re able to bring home to their families. This evidence suggests that when girls marry early, they subsequently suffer a substantial loss in earnings throughout their lives.
Child marriage undoubtedly impacts girls’ lives and their future, but the impacts of child marriage don’t just stop at the girl herself. For example, girls who marry early have more children over their lifetime, and those children tend to be less educated and less healthy than children born of older mothers. The same ICRW/World Bank research project found that in Pakistan ending child marriage would reduce total fertility rates by about 10 percent. This level of impact has broad implications for not only families but also national economies, as lower fertility rates can improve standards of living and reduce demand for basic services.
When we look at combined effects of welfare costs, earnings losses, and the costs of social services, we find that child marriage has tremendously high economic costs at the national level and that eliminating the practice could yield tremendous savings for nations. In Niger, which has the highest rates of child marriage in the world, eliminating child marriage could lead to benefits valued at more than $25 billion (in purchasing power parity terms) between 2014 and 2030.
In short, child marriage has a range of negative consequences, from restricting girls’ rights and stifling their aspirations, to broad health, development, and economic challenges. As such, we need leadership across the globe to end this great challenge. The good news is that the United States has taken important steps to tackle child marriage through its foreign policy and assistance. The US Agency for International Development has a forward-looking Vision for Action for Ending Child Marriage, and last year then-Secretary of State John Kerry released the world’s first foreign policy solely focused on the protection and empowerment of adolescent girls. The “Girl Strategy” recognizes the complexity of girls’ lives and that strategies to tackle child marriage must tackle harmful gender norms and limitations on access to quality education. The Girl Strategy also outlines the importance of preparing girls for economic participation, including through school completion, freely choosing if, when, and whom to marry as consenting adults, and full access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The strategy builds on legislative efforts by Illinois’ own Senator Dick Durbin, a key champion and original co-sponsor of the US Protecting Girls by Ending Child Marriage Act.
The Trump Administration and Congress should build upon this strong foundation and continue to provide American leadership toward ending child marriage and ensuring the world’s girls are able to lead happy, healthy, and productive lives as engaged citizens and participants in the global economy and community.