The law of child marriage: a gray area
Low-level economic and educational conditions will greatly increase the possibility of child marriage. However, a highly developed economy and education will not completely end child marriage. On the contrary, it is very likely to conceal the fact that child marriage exists. The United States is such an example.
According to the data from the "Unchained At Last", a public interest organization to end child marriage in the United States, between 2000 and 2010, approximately 248,000 American children were married, of which 77% of the girls were married to adult men. Although the absolute number of child marriages in the United States is far less than in Africa and South Asia and other regions with high incidence of child marriages. However, the reality of child marriage that violates human rights is rarely known in the United States.
Note: The numbers or words on the picture are the legal minimum age for marriage.
Source: FINAL Aug 2020 Policy Brief Disconnect btwn Stat Rape and Marriage Age (Tahirih Justice Center).
This has led to the emergence of criminal acts such as "rape of minors" and "marital rape".
However, child marriage, which violates human rights, can provide legal defense and additional litigation for criminal acts in the name of marriage, in an attempt to rationalize the crime.
After recognizing the reality of child marriage in the United States, the United States Ending Child Marriage Charity Organization "Unchained At Last" has been carrying out the practice of ending child marriage in the United States since 2011. As of 2020, the four states or territories of Delaware, New Jersey, Virgin Islands, and Minnesota have passed laws prohibiting child marriage in the United States.
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Source: https://www.unchainedatlast.org/child-marriage-progress/ (2020)
The key to the legal protection of child marriage lies in the substantive effect of the law. Taking into account the fact that the child married girl is too young, lacks education and legal knowledge, does not understand the ways to seek help, and fails to seek help from family members or traditional authorities, the law may still be unable to protect child married girls.
The law merely provides a framework for action to end child marriage, and child marriage will not disappear because of legislation.
Traditional concept vs legal effect
In 2018, UN Women conducted an online survey on the legal perception of child marriage in 10 countries with high child marriage rates, including
Egypt, Ethiopia, and others. The survey shows that in these countries, up to 66.5% of respondents do not know that existing laws can protect girls from child marriage.
Note: 1. For the Middle East, North Africa and North America area, the two values cannot be displayed due to overlap. There are three overlapping values in South Asia, and all three of them are not displayed; 2. In Latin America
and the Caribbean area, 22.6% of girls face the threat of child marriage when marriage is permitted by justice; 22.7% of girls face the threat of child marriage when their parents agree. Due to the close value, both cannot
be displayed.
Source: Ending Child Marriage: Child Marriage Laws and Their Limitation (October 2017).
From a global perspective, some existing laws still allow 5.4% of girls in the world to marry before the age of 18. Even if the law clearly stipulates that child marriage is illegal, parental "consent" and judicial "permission" are still legal. As a result, the proportion of girls facing the threat of child marriage in the world will jump to 33.6%. The Middle East and North Africa has seen an increase of more than 50%, and 73.3% of girls face the threat of child marriage.
The situation in high-income countries is also not optimistic. Even child marriage laws in high-income countries protect nearly 99% of girls. However, as long as the parents "consent" or the judicial "permits" child marriage, 35.5% of girls in high-income countries are still at risk of child marriage, while this figure is only 20.3% in low-income countries. But the paradox is that although the relative laws in low-income countries are stricter, it does not mean that these legal protection measures will be implemented.
In the reality that the traditional concept of hedging the legal effect, we need to take real action.
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