Child Marriage

Girl Child Marriage is one of the burning issues  in the society today. Every young girl  need to be educated, according to wikipedia "Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits". Education can be one of the most powerful tools to enable girls to avoid child marriage and fulfil their potential. The longer a girl stays in school, the less likely she is to be married before the age of 18 and have children during her teenage years. When girls have access to safe, quality secondary education, the benefits are widely felt. Educated girls develop skills, knowledge and confidence to make informed decisions including if, when and whom to marry. Being in school also supports the perception that girls are still children and are therefore not of a suitable age to marry.

 It is clear that child marriage often means the end to a girls’ formal education. When a girl drops out of school she is denied her right to an education and the ability to
develop the skills and knowledge needed to live a healthy, fulfilling life and one where she can earn an income and contribute to her family and community. Girls tend to drop out of school in the preparatory time before marriage or shortly afterwards. Once a girl is out of school, she is more vulnerable to child marriage and early
pregnancy. Child brides are often disempowered, dependent on their husbands and deprived of their fundamental rights to health, education and safety. Neither physically nor emotionally ready to become wives and mothers, child brides are at greater risk of experiencing dangerous complications in pregnancy and childbirth, becoming infected with HIV/AIDS and suffering domestic violence. With little access to education and economic opportunities, they and their families are more likely to live in poverty


Young girls with low levels of education are more likely to experience violence by an intimate partner. A young girl who is still struggling to understand her own anatomy is forced to make conjugal relations and often show signs of post traumatic stress and depression owing to sexual abuse by her older partner. Neither their bodies are prepared nor their innocent little minds.
Forced sexual encounters lead to irreversible physical damage. The psychological damage cannot even be comprehended. The girls are three times more likely to experience marital rape. The girls who marry after 18 years are more likely to talk to their husbands
about contraception, discuss when to have children and how many. Young brides face a higher risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted
diseases owing to her marriage with an older man with more sexual encounters.


UNICEF Statistics states that "Young girls who are less than 15 years are five times more likely to die during child birth than those in the 20s"  The infant mortality rate is very high because the young body of a woman is biologically not capable of maternity.
Owing to their tender age, some of them are sexually exploited by other men in the family and they are too scared to go out and complain. In the absence of proper education, little
do they know that the gender of a child depends on the father and not the mother. If sex determination issues and female foeticide continue for a girl child, it would possibly further add to their woes. Girls who marry at a tender age are more likely to believe that it is justified for a man to batter his wife than her peers who marry after attaining adulthood.

Many girls aren’t in education because schools are inaccessible or expensive, or simply because parents don’t see the value of education for their daughters, either because it is poor quality or not seen as relevant to their lives. With few
alternatives available, parents often see
marriage as the best option for their daughter. Child marriage and early pregnancy can also force girls out of school. Girls tend to drop out before or shortly after marriage because their new role of wife often comes with new expectations around taking care of the home as well as caring for children and extended family. Returning to school can be difficult too. Married girls who would like to continue schooling may be both practically and culturally  excluded from doing so.

However, education alone is not enough to end child marriage. We also need to address the root cause of child marriage,  gender inequality and the low value assigned to girls in society. Only then we will end the practice once and for all.