last updated 20 August 2007

Forced and early marriages entrap women and young girls in relationships that deprive them of their basic human rights.  Forced marriage constitutes a human rights violation in and of itself.  Article One of the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages states that “No marriage shall be legally entered into without the full and free consent of both parties, such consent to be expressed by them in person after due publicity and in the presence of the authority competent to solemnize the marriage and of witnesses, as prescribed by law.”

The Marriage Convention addresses the issue of age. According to Article 2 of the Convention, “States Parties to the present Convention shall take legislative action to specify a minimum age for marriage. No marriage shall be legally entered into by any person under this age, except where a competent authority has granted a dispensation as to age, for serious reasons, in the interest of the intending spouses.”  Under General Assembly Resolution 2018 (XX) of 1 November 1965, “Recommendation on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages,” Principle II states that the minimum age to marry be set no lower than fifteen years.  However, this is only a recommendation and it still allows room for a competent authority to grant “dispensation as to age for serious reasons.” 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.

Forced marriages differ from arranged marriages.  In forced marriages, one or both of the partners cannot give free or valid consent to the marriage.  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.

In arranged marriages, the parents and families play a leading role in arranging the marriage, but the individuals getting married can nonetheless chose whether to marry or not.  Many regard arranged marriage as a well-established cultural tradition that flourishes in many communities, so a clear distinction should be drawn between forced and arranged marriages. However, in some cases the difference between a forced marriage and an arranged marriage may be purely semantic. In her January 2007 report, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Aspects of the Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children,” Sigma Huda states that, “[a] marriage imposed on a woman not by explicit force, but by subjecting her to relentless pressure and/or manipulation, often by telling her that her refusal of a suitor will harm her family’s standing in the community, can also be understood as forced.”

Prevalence

Forced and early marriage mainly affects young women and girls, although there are cases of young men and boys being forced to marry—especially if there are concerns about his sexual orientation.

Reliable statistics on forced marriage are difficult to compile due to the unofficial and, therefore, undocumented nature of most forced marriages. According to the 2007 report by Sigma Huda, victims’ resistance to speaking out against their typically “closed” families or communities poses another obstacle to collecting reliable data.  The lack of a birth certificate can also mean that the victim has no way to prove that they are a victim of early marriage.

While forced and early marriages, as well as early motherhood, are becoming increasingly less common among the wealthiest sectors of society in all regions of the world, they persist in Africa and South Asia, as well as certain areas of the Former Soviet Union.  In 2003, the International Centre for Research on Women estimated that more than 51 million girls under 18 years were married and they expected the figure to rise to over 100 million within the next ten years.  Similarly, in 2006, experts estimated that thirty-eight percent of young women aged 20 to 24 in the fifty least developed countries were married before the age of 18.

In “Early Marriage: A Harmful Traditional Practice,” UNICEF estimates that among women aged 15 to 24, 48 percent were married before the age of 18 in South Asia. In Bangladesh, 27.3 percent of women aged 15 to19 years old were married by the age of 15, and 65.3 percent of women aged 20 to 24 were married before the age of 18.

UNICEF estimates that in Africa 42 percent of women aged 15 to 24 were married before the age of 18. In Niger, 27.3 percent of women ages 15 to19 were married before the age of 15, and 76.6 percent of women ages 20 to 24 were married before the age of 18. According to surveys conducted by the National Committee on Traditional Practices of Ethiopia (NCTPE), the prevalence of marriage by abduction is as high as 92 per cent in Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR), with a national average of 69 percent.

According to “Kidnapping for Marriage in a Kyrgyz Village," forced and early marriages have surged since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The practice of bride kidnapping or bride abduction is the most common form of forced marriage in this region. Bride abductions have been documented in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan, and Albania. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, bride abduction was used by consenting couples who could not otherwise marry due to financial difficulties or social constraints. Today, most bride abductions occur in spite of a girl or young woman’s protestations and often involve men’s families, who sometimes instigate and conspire in the abduction.  In Kyrgyzstan, “bride-kidnapping” is becoming more common. Human Rights Watch found that, approximately 40 percent of women in cities had been victims of bride kidnapping while 60 to 80 percent of village women had been victims.  

Forced and early marriages are not limited to these regions of the world. In Afghanistan, for example, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission estimates that over 38 percent of women have been victims of forced marriage. In Albania, some families encourage girls to marry young to prevent them from being kidnapped on their way to school. UNICEF has stated that 54 percent of Afghan girls are victims of early marriage. The United Kingdom’s forced marriage unit sees over 250 cases a year.

Causes and Factors

No major world religion sanctions forced marriage. It is purely a cultural practice. However, no culture exclusively practices forced marriage.

Victims are forced into marriage for many different reasons. In the United Kingdom, the Working Group on Forced Marriage found that most cases were a result of “loving manipulation, where parents genuinely felt that they were acting in their children and family’s best interests.”  To families living in poverty or economic instability, a daughter may be seen as an “economic burden” who must be married as soon as possible to take financial strain off of the family. Marriage can also be used to settle a debt, or to strengthen family or caste status through social alliances. Fears about sexual activity before marriage, or fear of rumors about such activity ruining a daughter’s opportunity to marry well, also fuel early and forced marriages. In many cultures, a family’s honor depends on a girl’s virginity, so a girl will sometimes be married off soon after her first menstruation to “protect” her virginity.

Sending a victim back to an immigrant family’s country of origin to marry or forcing a victim to sponsor a spouse from the country of origin (usually to a Western country) has grown increasingly common. In some cases, victims of forced marriages can be considered trafficking victims, as well. The United Kingdom’s Forced Marriage Unit states that every year they see over 100 cases of British nationals being forced abroad to marry.

In societies with highly disproportionate ratio of men to women, women are trafficked for the purpose of marriage. In China, a large number of North Korean women are being trafficked into the country to compensate for the “shortage” of women due to the one-child policy and a cultural preference for male children. In situations of armed conflict, such as in Sierra Leone, women are sometimes trafficked for the purpose of marrying soldiers.

Consequences

Forced and early marriages have severe psychological, emotional, medical, financial, and legal consequences. Victims tend to be isolated from their peers and friends. They rarely have access to social services that could assist them. Early marriages often interrupt a victim’s education. This deprives them of their right to education, as well as limits any possibility of economic independence from their spouse, making it more difficult to escape from an unwanted marriage.

The unofficial nature of many of these marriages means that they often go unregistered, leaving a woman with no legal protections in cases of separation. In Tajikistan, although the minimum legal age for entry into marriage is 17, many people circumvent the law by entering into traditional Muslim nikoh marriages. Because these marriages are purely religious, they are not registered or recognized by the state. In the event of a divorce, the couple’s assets are not divided, and the woman often ends up homeless and with little or no money.

Forced and early marriages are also more likely to become violent because the relationship is based on the power of one spouse over the other. Rape occurs frequently in forced and early marriages and has severe consequences, especially for young brides. Young married women are more susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV/AIDS. In general, younger women enter into marriages with partners who are significantly older and more sexually experienced. A lack of education concerning STDs, social norms preventing young girls’ from asking questions about their partners’ sexual history, and a limited amount of power in their marriage make these young women more susceptible to STDs. For example, although more than 90 percent of girls in Amhara had their first sexual encounter within marriage, it has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Complications during childbirth are much more common among young mothers.  They can result in severe disabilities, such as obstetric fistula—a tearing of the vagina which can leave women incontinent and isolated from society. Maternal mortality rates (MMR) are significantly higher among younger women. For example, in Ethiopia the MMR is over 1200 per 100,000 live births among girls aged 15 to19 and only slightly over 400 per 100,000 live births in women ages 20 to 34. In Yemen, where 52.1 percent of women are victims of early marriage, the maternal mortality rate among girls aged 15 to 19 is 19 percent.

Honor killings may also be a consequence in cases where a forced marriage is refused. For more information, please see our webpage on honor killings.

International and Domestic Law and Policies

Numerous international legal instruments prohibit forced and early marriage, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Although most countries have signed onto these documents, many countries have not taken sufficient steps to implement these treaties. For example, many signatory countries still lack domestic laws specifying 18 as the minimum age to marry.   In the United States, some states have no minimum age to marry (although they typically require court and parental approval), and others make exception to their minimum age if there is a pregnancy involved, which can conflict with states’ statutory rape laws.

In 2005, the Council of Europe adopted Resolution 1468 on forced marriages and child marriages. The resolution defines forced marriage as the “union of two persons at least one of whom has not given their full and free consent to the marriage” (Para. 4), and child marriage as the “union of two persons at least one of whom is under 18 years of age” (Para. 7). It urges states, inter alia, to ratify relevant international treaties, comply with the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation (2002)5 on the protection of women against violence, set the minimum age for marriage at eighteen years, and consider criminalizing acts of forced marriage. 

Only a few countries have criminalized forced marriage. In Croatia, Chapter 14 of the criminal code expressly penalizes forced marriages, which includes “criminal acts directed against sexual freedom and sexual morality.”  However, criminalization of this conduct is not universally accepted as the best way to eliminate the practice of forced marriage.  After examining the possible outcomes criminalizing forced marriage, the UK declined to make it a criminal offense due to concerns that victims would not want their families to be punished.

The dearth of laws criminalizing marital rape can make it difficult to prosecute perpetrators of violence in forced marriages, such as in the case of the Czech Republic.  Nevertheless, criminal offenses committed within a forced marriage—such as rape, sexual assault, false imprisonment and kidnapping—are punishable under existing criminal statutes in most countries.

For the first time in history, the act of forced marriage was prosecuted as a crime against humanity under international law. According to the 2007 report by Sigma Huda, in May 2004, the Special Court for Sierra Leone charged six individuals with the act of forced marriage. Forced marriage during the war in Sierra Leone involved not only the acts of rape and sexual slavery, but forcing a woman to do other tasks, such as cook or clean. These “marriages” lasted for years. Many of these bush wives have been unable to return home due to the associated stigma of their marriage, a “Stockholm Syndrome” attachment to their commanders, threatened separation from their children, or a lack of resettlement support.

Prevention Efforts

Forced and early marriages are widespread, yet many local efforts to prevent these marriages have been successful. Crisis lines, women’s shelters, schools, groups or clubs for girls, and even monetary incentives have all proved effective in postponing marriages for girls and helping to stop forced marriages.

The Life Skills Program run by the Institute for Health Management provides a one year life skills course for young women and girls in the Maharashtra region of India. The course focuses on self-sufficiency and encourages parents to actively participate. Since the introduction of the course, the median age at marriage for the region has risen from 14.5 years to 17 years. Also in the regions of Rajasthan, Karnataka and Haryana, India, a small sum is deposited in a savings account at the birth of a daughter into a low-income family. If the girl reaches 18 and is unmarried, she may then collect the sum.

In Bangladesh, a secondary school scholarship program for girls was introduced in the early 1990s. To participate, parents had to sign a contract promising their daughters would not marry before age 18. Schools waived fees for books and school fees, and parents received some compensation for the diminished agricultural production resulting from the loss of the daughter’s labor. The program has seen great success in postponing marriages.

In Ethiopia, girls’ clubs have been set up to educate girls about the harmful effects of early marriage as well as the importance of education. Girls in trouble frequently report plans of an early marriage to friends or the head of the club or women’s association. Also in Ethiopia, local organizations form “early marriage cancellation committees” involving people from all sectors of society. When the committee is informed of an early marriage arrangement, they alert law enforcement or assist with legal representation.

Such programs have emboldened girls to take action on their own behalf.  There have been reports of cases where a victim’s classmates, hearing of a forced or early marriage of a peer, have lobbied against it and even sent petitions to local law enforcement.

Compiled from:

“An Absence of Choice: The Sexual Exploitation of North Korean Women in China,” Norma Kang Muico, Anti Slavery International, 2005.

“Age of Consent Muddles Law on Marriage vs. Rape,” Claire Bushey, Womensenews, 7 June 2007.

“Alternative Report on the Observance of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by the Republic of Tajikistan,” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, September 2006.

“Campaign on Early Marriage in Yemen: Process and Results,” Nisha, Oxfam GB, June 2005.

“Child Wedding ‘Stopped by Pupils,’” BBC News, 13 July 2007.

“The Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage, and Registration of Marriages,” UN General Assembly, 7 November 1962.

“Bride Kidnapping,” United Nations Population Fund, 2006.

“Bride Theft Rampant in Southern Georgia,” Kokhodze, Gulo & Tamuna Uchidze, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 15 June 2006.

“Child Marriage Fact Sheet,” Press Release, United Nations Population Division, 2005.

“A Choice by Right,” Working Group on Forced Marriage, June 2000.

“Early Marriage: Child Spouses,” UNICEF, March 2001.

“Early Marriage: A Harmful Traditional Practice,” UNICEF, 2005.

“Evaluation report on General Situation of Women in Afghanistan,” Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, 2005.

“Forced Marriage: The Overseas Dimension,” Foreign & Commonwealth Office, 4 Aug 2000.

“Forced Marriage: A Wrong Not a Right.” Foreign and Commonwealth Office Consultation.

“Forced Marriages in Council of Europe Member States,” Rude-Antoine, Edwige, ed., Council of Europe, 2005.

“Kidnapping for Marriage (ala kachuu) in a Kyrgyz Village,” Russell Kleinbach, Mehrigiul Ablezova & Medina Aitieva, Central Asian Survey, June 2005, 192-193.

“Know the Facts,” International Center for Research on Women, 2003.

“Our Two Year Strategy,” Forced Marriage Unit, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, May 2007.

“Reconciled to Violence,” Human Rights Watch, September 2006.

“Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Aspects of the Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children,” Sigma Huda, Human Rights Council, 24 January 2007.

“Success on the Ground: Reducing Child Marriage,” ICRW, 2007.

“Text Message Saves Girl from Forced Marriage,” IRIN News, 23 April 2007.

“Too Young to Wed,” International Center for Research on Women, 2003.

“UNICEF Supports Fight to End Marriage by Abduction in Ethiopia,” UNICEF Communications Section.

“Uzbekistan – Bride Kidnapping,” Alena Aminova, Network of East-West Women, 18 August 2003.

“What We Can Do to Help,” Forced Marriage Unit, Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

“Youth and Their Well-Being,” Richard Mabala, United Nations Conference Center Addis Ababa, June 2006.