Child marriage interferes with the development of young girls, which often leads to the birth and subsequent emotional withdrawal of the young mother. Early marriage often leads to limited school enrolment, increased birth rates and poverty. The development and implementation of the legal age of marriage is necessary to protect girls, who are more influenced by the culture of child marriage than boys. Many countries in the MENA region have minimum age of marriage laws ranging from 13 in Iran to 20 in Tunisia for women and from 15 in Yemen to 21 in Algeria for men. In pre-war Syria, 13% of Syrian women aged 20-25 were married 18 years ago; Today, child marriage has increased among all Syrian populations, including those who have not been displaced. The number of forcibly displaced persons has deteriorated considerably, including refugees, whose vulnerability is striking in relation to the host population. The legal age of marriage in Jordan is 18, but judges could allow 15-year-old girls to marry in exceptional cases – until April 2019, when the age was raised to 16. The proportion of underage marriages in Jordan is 8%. However, for the one million Syrian refugees in Jordan, the proportion of child marriages increased from 15% in 2014 to 36% in 2018. In Lebanon, the legal age of marriage varies according to religious affiliation and child marriages are 6%. However, a 2016 study found that the prevalence of child marriage among the more than 1 million Syrian refugees had reached 39%. Nikah `urfi, traditional marriages according to Islamic rules in Lebanon and Jordan, also leave child brides with little protection, making divorce easier for husbands and abandonment for girls. The legal age of marriage in Pakistan is 16 for girls and 18 for boys.
But this law is rarely enforced as child marriage in Pakistan is closely linked to traditions. Pakistani civil society activists have repeatedly tried to change the legal age of marriage for girls between the ages of 16 and 18, but the proposal has twice been rejected by Pakistan`s National Assembly. Calling the recommended proposal un-Islamic, assembly representatives rejected raising the legal age of marriage for women. According to UNICEF, 21% of Pakistani girls marry before the age of 18 and 3% before the age of 15. Child marriage mainly takes place among marginalized and vulnerable communities in the country. · In April 2021, Save the Children interviewed 123 young people (including 75 girls) in 17 counselling sessions about their knowledge of child marriage laws in their country context, their views on whether these laws help protect girls from child marriage and, if not, what they think needs to be changed. In Late Antiquity, most Roman women married in their late teens until their early twenties, but noble women married younger than those in the lower classes, as an aristocratic virgin was supposed to be a virgin until her first marriage. [5] In Late Antiquity, under Roman law, daughters inherited equal shares from their parents if no will was made. [9]:63 Moreover, Roman law recognized women`s property as legally distinct from husbands` property,[9]:133-154 as did some legal systems in parts of Europe and colonial Latin America. Education is the most important factor influencing the age of marriage for women. Improving access to education for girls and boys and closing gender gaps in education are important strategies to end child marriage. Since families have a great influence on their daughters` marriage, they must be involved in the solution and encourage their daughters to stay in school and ensure a protected transition to adulthood.
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. [290] Sustainable Development Goal 5 calls for “gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.” The target includes a sub-target of eliminating child and forced marriages, human rights violations and harmful practices that disproportionately affect girls – 82% of child marriages affect girls. In Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the age of marriage for boys and girls is 15. It is forbidden to get engaged before the age of 15. [296] Ancient Roman law required wives to be at least 12 years old. In ancient Roman law, early marriages to wives between the ages of 12 and 25 required the consent of the bride and her father, but in late antiquity, Roman law allowed women over the age of 25 to marry without parental consent. [9]: 29-37 Through forced migration and war, child marriage is a negative coping factor and reinforces tradition. Families are concerned about girls` safety and “honour” and see marriage as a means of care and protection for their daughters. The girls` families often wish to marry local men in order to receive recognition and dowry. In Iraq, so-called religion-motivated “pleasure marriages” condemn girls, often to older men, for short periods. [i] Similarly, in Egypt, “summer” or “tourist” weddings require girls to marry foreign men who travel to the country for this purpose.[ii] Despite various laws restricting the practice, exceptions and loopholes allow for the temporary marriage of children.
For example, marriages based on religion without going to court are prohibited in Iraq, but still occur when a small fine is paid. Under Turkish law, the minimum age for marriage is 18, but children can marry at the age of 16 with court approval in “extraordinary circumstances.” According to Syrian law, the legal age of marriage is 16 for girls and 17 for boys. Nevertheless, with the onset of destructive civil violence in Syria since 2011, millions of Syrian girls have become vulnerable to early marriage, and currently child marriage has become a growing problem for Syrian refugee girls in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey. According to 2011 data, 12% of registered marriages involving girls were under the age of 18. This figure reached 18% in 2012, 25% in 2013 and 32% in early 2014. In Lebanon, 41% of young Syrian refugee women married before the age of 18. Since most of these marriages have not been registered, the numbers may actually be much higher. Internally displaced girls in Syria could also face the same issues, as child marriage is not a new issue in Syria. Before the conflict, 13% of Syrian women aged 20 to 25 married before the age of 18, but there is no precise information on current conditions. Currently, several factors such as the spread of conflict, growing poverty, gender discrimination, families` efforts to protect their daughters, especially from sexual abuse, and to welcome girls` families in other countries as refugees, have led to an increase in child marriage among Syrian girls. Since many families hold religious ceremonies to marry off their young daughters and some countries have a low minimum age for girls, a significant number of girls in the MENA region still marry before the age of 18. In Yemen, one third of women aged 20 to 24 are married by the age of 18.
In Palestine, Egypt and Iraq, a significant proportion of women aged 20-24 were married before their 18th birthday (see figure). Among the countries for which data are available, Algeria has the lowest percentage of young women married before their 18th birthday, 2%. In Western countries, adolescent marriages have become rare in recent years, with their frequency decreasing in recent decades. For example, in Finland, where at the beginning of the 21st century there were During this period only 30-40 such marriages per year (most spouses are 17 years old), while in the early 1990s more than 100 such marriages were registered each year. Since 1 June 2019, Finland has banned marriages of persons under the age of 18 without exception. [40] [41] Prior to 1929, Scottish law followed Roman law in allowing a girl to marry at the age of twelve and a boy at fourteen without the need for parental consent. However, marriage in Scotland at such a young age was almost unknown in practice. [30] The minimum age of 12 and 14 was eventually incorporated into English civil law. By default, these provisions became the minimum age of marriage in colonial America. [10] Marriages took place, on average, a few years earlier in colonial America than in Europe, and much higher proportions of the population eventually married.
Community studies suggest an average age of marriage of about 20 for women in the early colonial period and about 26 for men. [29] At the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, the United States.