Child marriage: a message from Nada Al-Ahdal
Child marriage is one of the crimes committed against young girls. It is a gross violation of human rights and kills the innocence of childhood. In this video and article, Nada Al-Ahdal explains its causes and its harm, and calls on the world to act.
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The recruitment of children violates the rights of boys. In the same way, child marriage violates the rights of girls. But child marriage is the bigger offence, because it happens in every country, while child recruitment mostly happens in countries at war.
Why girls are married young
- Unjust traditions and customs. Our parents became victims of harmful customs that have killed girls and still kill more and more of them.
- Fathers' beliefs. Many fathers believe that an early marriage protects a girl's honour, secures her future and saves her from staying unmarried, as happened with the girls before her. They forget that marriage kills her future, ruins her life, deprives her of education and holds society back.
- Poverty. It is used to justify these marriages. Marrying young girls for money is trading in children.
- Displacement and war. They create frightening problems and insecurity, for example in Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
- Inequality between the sexes. A girl is seen as a source of shame to be removed by marriage, so that the family no longer carries responsibility for mistakes she might make outside law or custom. This view must end.
The harm it does
According to the studies the author cites, most of these girls end up dying in pregnancy or childbirth, because their bodies cannot bear it. A girl who survives faces harm to her own interests, and society suffers too:
- She loses her parents' care. This can leave her broken, psychologically and emotionally.
- She leaves school. This happens even if her husband allows her to study, for several reasons:
- Custom expects a married girl to stay in her husband's house, "until the grave", as many cultures put it.
- Pregnancy and childbirth keep her at home, even on exam days.
- Classmates keep away from married girls. Custom pushes them out of school life, and fear that marital matters will be talked about among pupils makes her situation very hard.
- Society falls behind. A child is left to raise a child.
- Society is harmed for generations. The author says that most young mothers have children with physical disabilities.
What Nada Foundation recorded in Yemen in 2017
Nada Foundation monitored violations against girls in Yemen in 2017. More than 250 girls were forced into marriage for social reasons or because of hard living conditions. Most of them had been displaced by the war, or were exploited after losing their parents or being displaced.
Imagine a different society
What if a girl finished her education and married after the legal age, by her own choice? Let us imagine that this is our society and these are our customs, and that we see young girls as we see young boys.
My message to the world
Today we must all stand against these violations. They destroy the souls of their victims. They also harm the generations to come, raised by mothers whose rights were violated in childhood: girls taken by force to adults' beds while they were still playing with friends, and taken from their school desks to carry a family too big for a child.
We must say with one voice: childhood is not for sale, and girls are not for trade. Every girl, anywhere in the world, must have rights that are respected and protected.