“Deciding when and who to marry is one of life`s most important decisions,” said UN Population Fund Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin at the launch of the UN initiative. “Child marriage deprives millions of girls of this choice every year.” Child marriage prevention programmes have adopted different approaches. Various initiatives aim to empower young girls, educate parents about the risks involved, change community perceptions, support girls` education, and provide economic opportunities for girls and their families through means other than marriage. A survey of various prevention programmes revealed that initiatives had the greatest impact when they pooled efforts to address women`s financial constraints, education and limited employment. [358] According to Büchler and Schlater, although the age of marriage should not be equated with the age of majority in civil law, these age limits may be the same. [122] Figure 4 shows the difference between the minimum age of marriage with parental consent for girls and boys for each country in the world. A total of 59 countries have minimum age of marriage laws that allow girls to be married younger than boys with parental consent. In South Asia, 50 per cent of countries set a lower minimum age for parental marriage than for boys, as do 41 per cent in the Americas, 40 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, 38 per cent in East Asia and the Pacific, 32 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 9 per cent in Europe and Central Asia.

In 17 countries, the legal difference is three or four years; This is most common in South Asia (38% of countries) and sub-Saharan Africa (21% of countries). In classical Islamic law, suitability for marital relations depends on physical maturity (bulugh) and mental maturity (rushd). Classical jurists did not set a minimum age for marriage because they did not believe that maturity would be reached by everyone at a certain age. [118] [119] [106] [120] [121] Büchler and Schlater state that “according to classical Islamic law, marriageable age coincides with the onset of puberty. The term puberty refers to signs of physical maturity such as the emission of semen or the onset of menstruation. Traditional schools of Islamic jurisprudence (madhaahib) define the age of full legal capacity to marry as follows:[122] While in many countries the age of 18 legally marks the end of childhood, the age of marriage does not always correspond – legally or otherwise – to the age of majority. Most countries (153 out of 198) require that people who want to marry be adults (18 years or older). But many of these countries have some sort of exemption from this requirement.

For example, in Australia, if a person is at least 18 years old, his or her spouse can be as young as 16 years old (with judicial approval). And in many other countries, such as Iraq, Jamaica and Uruguay, children can marry with parental permission. When it comes to child marriage, the United States and Canada have more in common with Niger and Bolivia than with other Western industrialized countries. Before the Industrial Revolution, women in many parts of the world, including India, China, and Eastern Europe, tended to marry immediately after puberty, in their mid-teens. These matrimonial practices carried the will in societies with largely rural populations until the 19th century. [26] Men tended to marry later in societies where a married couple was expected to start their own household. This usually meant that men remained single until they had accumulated enough wealth to support a new home and, in middle age, were married to teenage girls who contributed a dowry to the family`s finances. [27] Several countries also have different age requirements depending on religious affiliation. For example, in the Philippines, couples must be 21 years old to marry without permission, unless they are Muslim; Muslim boys can marry at 15 and Muslim girls can marry during puberty.

And in Tanzania, Muslim and Hindu girls can marry at the age of 12, as long as the marriage is not consummated until the girl turns 15. Note: For State Department and United Nations minimum age of marriage summaries in 198 countries, click here (PDF). This article has been updated to reflect information received after publication. Poverty and the lack of laws requiring a minimum age for marriage have been cited as reasons for child marriage in Latin America. [158] [159] In an effort to address the widespread belief among poor, rural, and indigenous communities that child marriage is a way out of poverty, some NGOs are working with communities in Latin America to change norms and create safe spaces for adolescent girls. [157] The Court`s findings show that regional models of minimum age of marriage legislation vary considerably from one measure to another. Exceptions allowing marriage before the age of 18 with parental consent for girls are highest in America (90%), followed by the Middle East and North Africa (53%), sub-Saharan Africa (50%) and South Asia (38%). The proportion of countries where girls under 18 can be married when exceptions based on customary and/or religious law are taken into account is highest in the Middle East and North Africa (41 per cent), followed by South Asia (33 per cent), sub-Saharan Africa (26 per cent) and East Asia and the Pacific (23 per cent).

South Asia was the region with the highest percentage of countries with gender differences in minimum age of marriage laws (50%), followed by the Americas (41%), sub-Saharan Africa (40%) and East Asia and the Pacific (38%). Longitudinal policy and legal data dating back to the first International Convention on Child Marriage are needed to enable research that deepens our understanding of the drivers of regional differences in legislation on the minimum age of marriage. UNICEF reported that 28.8% of marriages in Nepal in 2011 were child marriages. [249] A UNICEF working paper found that 79.6 percent of Muslim girls in Nepal, 69.7 percent of girls living in mountainous areas, regardless of religion, and 55.7 percent of girls living in other rural areas are all married before the age of 15. Girls born in the richest quintile marry about two years later than those born in the other quintiles. [250] Recent studies suggest that protective laws may indeed be associated with a lower prevalence of child marriage and lower adolescent fertility rates. Research using DHS data in sub-Saharan Africa found that a minimum age of marriage of 18 years or older in national laws (general minimum age of marriage, minimum age with parental consent, and age of sexual consent) was associated with lower rates of child marriage in households (Maswikwa et al. In addition, a longitudinal study of national child marriage laws and adolescent fertility rates found that countries with strict laws setting a minimum age of marriage at 18 without exception had larger declines in adolescent fertility rates (Kim et al. 2013). Building on these new findings on the importance of national minimum age of marriage laws and previous work examining child marriage policies through CRC and CEDAW reports (Melchiorre 2004), this study contributes to the first detailed analysis of child marriage laws using data based on original laws globally.