Child Marriage Why We Should Care Presented by

Child Marriage Why We Should Care Presented by Kristin Koblis and Ela Pandya

Sustainable Development Goal 5 “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”

Sustainable Development Goal 5 Target #3: Eliminate all harmful practices, such as early and forced child marriages and genital mutilation, by 2030.

Effects of Child Marriage • Isolates young girls, making them dependent and helpless • Deprives them of fundamental rights to education and safety • Affects reproductive health • Higher risk of poor health- complications of child-birth, HIV, etc. • Higher risk of facing domestic violence, sexual abuse, economic dependence, poverty, divorce (with no resources after it) • Next generation also gets stuck in same cycle

Causes of Child Marriage • A way to ease economic hardship by transferring the ‘burden’ to her husband’s family • Traditions, cultural expectations, or right of passage • Belief that marriage will provide a secure and better future • A coping mechanism in the face of poverty and violence

Status of Child Marriage in 12 Countries

ZI’s Strategies for Ending Child Marriage • Build skills and knowledge of girls that are at risk for child marriage. • Support households in demonstrating positive attitude towards adolescent girls. • Strengthen systems that deliver services to adolescent girls. • Ensure laws and policies that protect and promote adolescent girls. • Generate and use robust data to inform programs and policies related to adolescent girls.

Status of Child Marriage in the U. S. • Individual states have jurisdictions over the marriage laws that are inconsistent. • Although each state has set a minimum age, there are many loopholes to go around this requirement. • Between 2000 and 2010, over 248, 000 children under age 18 were married. o Including minors as young as 12 years old o 77% of them were girls married to adult men • Immigration law has no minimum age requirement for spouse/fiance visa. Source: Unchained At Last www. unchainedatlast. org

Loopholes In Marriage Laws in U. S. Source: Tahirih Justice Center – Falling Through the Cracks, How Laws Allow Child Marriage to Happen in Today’s America August 2017

Youngest Ages to get Married in the U. S. Source: Tahirih Justice Center

What can we do? • Support ZI’s End Child Marriage Project • Spread awareness about the issue of Child Marriage through social media, flyers, programs • Research Child Marriage Laws in your State • Contact your elected officials to have them introduce bills to eliminate loopholes, or support bills that are already on the floor • Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper

Don’t Let the Next Generation Get Stuck in the Same Cycle

To Child Marriage! Thank you for your dedication to Zonta