Usually in Palestine and Arab countries, the term child marriage refers to early marriage. Personally, I prefer to refer to early marriage as child marriage in order to give the topic more attention to raise awareness on this subject. To have a standard marriage age is difficult since each country has its own regulations and laws that differ from one another. Many conservative societies take advantage of the law and the religion to force marriage through counterfeit birth certificates. Other societies swindle the age of the girl by the name of culture and tradition practices. Girls married at the age of 6 years old are still children, as are girls married at age 15. Unfortunately, child marriage practice is still common even though local and international laws prevent it, but somehow people find their ways to go around the laws when it comes to marry a girl. Breaking through the laws is done using religion and traditional practices which is a violation of human rights, specifically children rights. Child marriage is only the leading beginning for teenage pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy is also well known within the frame of marriage or outside marriage. Either ways, this pregnancy is a challenge for the mother and society as a whole, which could place the health of the mother and child at high risks.
In 2011, I was touched by a story entitled "Too
Young to Wed: The Secret World of Child Brides" written by the journalist
Stephanie Sinclair. The story is centered on a girl from Yemen who was married
at the age of 6 years old to a grown man and she was a wife in the full sense
of the word. She had not reached puberty and so had not have children at first.
But, this was expected from her as soon as her husband intercourse with her.
Because of how much this story touched me, I decided to write about child
marriage and young pregnancy as practices that still exist nowadays.
In this paper, the aim is to highlight these two
concepts and their impact in delaying the achieving of theMillennium Development
Goals 4 and 5 (calling for a two – thirds reduction in child deaths and a three
– fourths reduction in maternal mortality by 2015 ).
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
A_global_View_on_Child_Marriage_and_Teenage_Pregnancy.pdf | 64.4 KB |