Last updated July 2019

Forced and early marriages are human right violations that disproportionally affect women and girls. The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) defines earyl marriage as “any marriage where at least one of the parties is under 18 years of age” and forced marriage as “marriages in which one and/or both parties have not personally expressed their full and free consent to the union.”[1] The Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages (Marriage Convention) requires that both parties to a marriage must give “full and free consent” to enter the marriage.[2] The Marriage Convention further requires all state parties to specify a minimum age for marriage.[3]  As children are unable to provide full and free consent to marry, early marriages are, by definitions, forced marriages.

Although the Marriage Convention does not stipulate a minimum age for early marriage, in a joint general comment, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on the Rights of the Child echoed OHCHR’s definition of early marriage: “any marriage where at least one of the parties is under 18 years of age.”[4] However, in the joint general comment, the committees write:

As a matter of respecting the child’s evolving capacities and autonomy in making decisions that affect her or his life, a marriage of a mature, capable child below 18 years of age may be allowed in exceptional circumstances, provided that the child is at least 16 years of age and that such decisions are made by a judge based on legitimate exceptional grounds defined by law and on the evidence of maturity, without deference to culture and tradition.[5]

It should be noted, though, that in a general comment issued two years later, the Committee on the Rights of the Child reaffirmed its position that the minimum age for marriage should be 18.[6] Still, the Marriage Convention allows room for a competent authority to grant “dispensation as to age for serious reasons.”[7] Leaving the minimum age of consent to the discretion of each country and allowing an authority to make exceptions to the minimum age of marriage aggravates the potential for early and forced marriages.

While forced marriages can be defined by the lack of consent upon entering the marriage, forced marriage can also be defined as a marriage in which “one of the parties is not permitted to end or leave it.”[8] As previously mentioned, children cannot provide free and full consent to marry regardless of other factors and therefore the following discussion of forced marriage refers only to adult women or women treated as adults. The International Labour Organization considers forced marriage to be a form of modern day slavery,[9] echoing the status of forced marriage under the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery.[10]  Forced marriages involve varying degrees of force, coercion or deception, ranging from emotional pressure by family or community members to abduction and imprisonment. Emotional pressure from a victim’s family includes repeatedly telling the victim that the family’s social standing and reputation are at stake, as well as isolating the victim or refusing to speak to her. In more severe cases, the victim can be subject to physical or sexual abuse, including rape.

Prevalence

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 15.4 million people were living in a forced or early marriage in 2016.[11] Around 13 million or 88% of victims were women, and 5.7 million or 37% were children.[12] According the ILO report, more than 90% of forced marriages took place in Asia and the Pacific and Africa.[13] In Africa, 4.8 out of every 1,000 individuals were victims of forced marriage, comprising 38% of all forced marriages worldwide. In Asia, 2 out of every 1,000 individuals were victims, comprising 55%. Despite the continued large number of women and girls in forced and early marriages, the rate of forced and early marriage has declined over the past decade by about 15%.[14]

In 2015, the U.N. adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, establishing several goals to help achieve “peace and prosperity for people and the planet.” Goal 5.3 calls for the “eliminat[ion of] all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage…” by 2030. The U.N. has stated that “the current rate of decline in child marriage is not sufficient to meet the SDG target of ending child marriage by 2030; to meet this target, progress would need to be 12 times faster than the rate observed over the past decade.”[15]