– Requiring the verification of complete consent from both spouses;
– Establishing and enforcing compulsory marriage registers; and
– Recognizing marital rape as a criminal offence.
According to Plan UK there are 38,461 child marriages every day. That’s 27 every minute, or about one girl every two seconds. The rate of early and forced marriage is 60% in countries like Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea and the Central African Republic. The countries with the highest rates of early and forced marriage include Georgia, Turkey and Ukraine. Further, in Britain and France marriages before the age of 18 are around 10%.
By supporting the rights of girls to education and making quality basic education accessible to them, girls may have more opportunities to end the cycle of poverty in their lives. That’s the first step in becoming independent and free from early and forced marriages.
But providing education isn’t as simple as setting a school in a girl’s village. Plan UK says that the cost of a daughter’s education is traditionally not seen as an investment in developing communities – especially when the community places greater value on her unpaid work in the home. Plan says the expectation that girls will marry and not earn an income outside the home has a profound impact on the kind of education that’s available to them.
There are a few petitions providing people with an opportunity to sign and show their disapproval of forced and early marriages. The one I chose to sign is Plan UK’s Because I am a Girl. It’s a worldwide campaign to help girls in affected countries escape early marriage and stay in education. Giving your name to support action advocating for these children is a small action, but it just might have a big impact.