Preventing Child Marriage

Education is one of the most powerful tools to delay the age at which girls marry as school attendance helps shift norms around child marriage.

Improving girls’ access to quality schooling will increase girls’ chances of gaining a secondary education and helps to delay marriage. When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries on average four years later.

Empowering girls, by offering them opportunities to gain skills and education, providing support networks and creating ‘safe spaces’ where girls can gather and meet outside the home, can help girls to assert their right to choose when they marry.

To prevent child marriage a wide range of individuals and organizations, from community leaders to international bodies, must take action. A first step is to inform parents and young people about the negative implications of child marriage so they can choose to prevent it.

Education is key in this process. Persuading parents to keep their daughters in school is critical for the overall development of girls - and in the postponement of marriage. Sri Lanka and the Indian state of Kerala are good examples. Both have a high age of first
marriage. Both also have given priority to girls' education. "This has changed the way men and women perceive their roles and potential, and has led to a greater support for the rights of women than is found in many other parts of (South Asia)," says the report.

For girls who are already married, services must be developed to counsel them on issues ranging from abuse to reproduction. Girls aged 15 to 19 give birth to 15 million babies a year. Many of them do so without attending an ante-natal clinic or receiving the help of a professional midwife. These can have serious repercussions on the health of both mother and child.

Preventing Child Marriage