Early marriage of girls remains a significant social and educational challenge in many parts of the world. This phenomenon is influenced by a complex interaction of social, cultural, economic, and pedagogical factors. The article analyzes the theoretical foundations of early marriage, focusing on social and pedagogical determinants, and highlights the role of education, family, and social institutions in preventing early marriage. The study emphasizes the importance of social-pedagogical interventions in promoting girls’ rights, educational continuity, and social development.
Teenage pregnancy occurs between the ages of 14-19 years. The number of those who married early before the age of 18 in 2018 puts Indonesia in the 10 countries with the highest absolute number of child marriages in the world, which is estimated at around 1,220,900. According to the UNFPA report, globally every year it is estimated that 14 million adolescents aged 15-19 years give birth and more than 90% of these births occur in developing countries. This study aims to determine the differences in young women’s knowledge about early marriage and pregnancy at a young age before and after counseling at MAN 4 Kab. Tangerang. This study uses quantitative methods and designs, namely "Quasi-Experimental Non-Equivalent Pretest And Posttest Control Group", the population of this study is the XII grade girls of MAN 4 Tangerang and the sample in this study was 63 respondents. The test used in this research is the T-Test Dependent test which aims to see the differences in the knowledge of young women in pre and post counseling at MAN 4 Kab. Tangerang. The results showed that the significance value was 0.000 < 0.05, then Ho was rejected and Ha was accepted, so counseling about early marriage and early pregnancy provided a difference between pre and post counseling on the knowledge of adolescent girls in class XIII MAN 4 Tangerang. It is hoped that the school will be able to provide a little material related to early marriage and early pregnancy on the sidelines of the subjects that have been determined. For adolescents, this research is expected to bring benefits to knowledge about child marriage and early pregnancy so that adolescents understand the impact of child marriage and early pregnancy.
Background: Persistent low physical activity (PA) levels among adolescent girls constitute a public health concern that calls for immediate and evidence-based policy action. This systematic review (SR) aimed to summarize evidence from SRs examining the barriers and facilitators of PA participation in adolescent girls. The objectives were to provide a synthesis of the available evidence and identify key areas for fostering gender-responsive action and policy implications. Methods: A comprehensive search of relevant SR and meta-analyses were performed in PubMed and Cochrane Library, until February 2021. Studies were included if they were SRs or meta-analyses, included adolescent girls aged between 10 and 19 years, and described barriers or facilitators of PA. Two independent authors performed the screening of potentially eligible studies and both assessed the methodological quality of included studies using the AMSTAR 2 tool. The barriers and facilitators were synthesized at environmental, interpersonal, and individual levels. Results: A total of eight SRs were included in the qualitative synthesis. The most frequent barriers identified were the lack of support from peers, family, and teachers, and the lack of time. The most reported facilitators were weight loss, and support from peers, family, and teachers. Key areas for action and policy implementation include an inclusive approach to curriculum development to address gender norms; adequate training of professionals so they have a range of skills to ensure inclusion of adolescent girls; environmental changes in and out of schools to stimulate participation, to allow adolescent girls to be active in a safe and attractive environment; multistakeholder support at local, regional, and national level in incorporating a gender-responsive approach toward PA participation. Conclusion: The results highlight a variety of factors that influences the PA participation of adolescent girls. For the attainment of effective policies that increase PA levels in adolescent girls, it is essential to engage several stakeholders at different levels in incorporating a gender-responsive approach toward PA participation. Systematic Review Registration: PROSPERO, identifier: CRD42020204023.
The government of Kenya's Triple Threat strategy recognises the need for urgent intervention to address the high incidence of HIV, gender-based violence (GBV) and pregnancy among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW). We used nationally representative data among AGYW aged 13-24 (n = 1344) from the 2018-19 Kenya Violence Against Children & Youth Survey (VACS) in multivariable logistic regression analyses to examine associations between three potential protective factors - gender-equitable attitudes, food security and parental monitoring - and outcomes related to the triple threat: Intimate partner violence (IPV); sexual violence; high HIV exposure risk; adolescent pregnancy; child marriage; and not being in school or paid work. Results showed that AGYW with gender-equitable attitudes were less likely to report IPV (adjusted odds-ratio (aOR):0.47, p < 0.01) and adolescent pregnancy (aOR:0.58, p < 0.05). AGYW who were food secure were less likely to report adolescent pregnancy (aOR:0.57, p < 0.05) and child marriage (aOR:0.51, p < 0.05). Those with high parental monitoring were less likely to report IPV (aOR:0.44, p < 0.01), sexual violence (aOR:0.49, p < 0.05), adolescent pregnancy (aOR:0.61, p < 0.05), and child marriage (aOR:0.41, p < 0.01). AGYW who had gender-equitable attitudes, food security and high parental monitoring (i.e., all three factors compared to none) had lower predicted probabilities of reporting IPV (22.3% vs. 5.0%), sexual violence (20.4% vs. 6.0%), adolescent pregnancy (23.7% vs. 7.7%), and child marriage (10.0% vs. 1.6%). The findings indicate that improving gender-equitable attitudes, food security and parental monitoring may positively impact multiple outcomes related to the triple threat; and that addressing all three may have the greatest impact.
Brendan Maughan‐Brown, Boladé Hamed Banougnin, Madison T. Little et al.
Child marriage continues to be an important public health and social challenge even in the 21st century. Globally, approximately 12 million girls are married as children annually and, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was estimated that over 120 million additional girls would be married as children by 2030 if programs to prevent child marriage are not accelerated [1]. Sub-Saharan Africa carries the greatest prevalence of child marriage, with approximately 35% of women married before the age of 18, followed by South Asia with nearly 30% [1].
Eunice Muthengi, Ronald Olum, Venkatraman Chandra‐Mouli
Child marriage has historically constituted a significant socio-cultural challenge in Tamil Nadu, shaped by entrenched caste hierarchies, patriarchal norms, and economic constraints. This study critically examines the historical background, legislative evolution, and contemporary trends of child marriage in the region. Using a qualitative and quantitative research framework, the study draws upon census data, legislative records, reformist writings, and secondary scholarly sources to analyse patterns across different historical phases. Evidence from the colonial period, particularly under the Madras Presidency, indicates a high prevalence of marriages among girls below the age of fifteen, often resulting in early widowhood and limited educational opportunities. The study further evaluates the impact of social reform movements led by prominent figures such as Periyar E. V. Ramasamy and Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, whose advocacy significantly influenced public opinion and policy formulation. Legislative interventions, including progressive amendments culminating in the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, have contributed to a measurable decline in early marriages. Despite notable progress, district-level disparities persist, particularly in economically disadvantaged rural communities where poverty, gender inequality, and limited awareness continue to sustain the practice. The findings underscore that legal measures alone are insufficient without complementary investments in female education, economic empowerment, and community-based awareness initiatives. The study concludes that a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach is essential to ensure the sustainable eradication of child marriage in Tamil Nadu.
Background: Early marriage is a harmful practice affecting millions of children especially girls across the globe with short- and long-term social and public health consequences. It extensively affects females of poor financial status, no or low-educated families living in rural areas with poor social status, and is associated with frequent childbirth (<24 months apart), unwanted pregnancy, and abortions that predispose young girls to social stigma, maternal morbidity, and mortality. Objective: The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence, determinants factors, and consequences of early marriage and factors that could worsen them as well as ways to prevent the practice. Methods: A mixed method survey questionnaire was adopted for stratified random data sampling among the Urhobo young girls of secondary school and tertiary institutions level age, married women, community leaders, policy makers. Data were analyzed descriptively in percentages as obtained from the questionnaire on prevalence of early marriage as well as the health and psychosocial consequences. Results: Among the 381/500 respondents, 63.8% have forced marriages and 48.3% were before 18 years old. Health and social consequences of early marriage include spousal abuse (19.2%), vesicovaginal fistula (VVF), and pregnancy-and-birth complications (14.8%), among others were reported. Factors that worsen the consequences such as customs/sociocultural beliefs that prohibit the victims of early marriage from seeking family planning constituted 20.4%. Conclusion: The study has revealed a significant prevalence and determinant factor of early marriage among the Urhobos. Respondents regardless of their instructive foundation concurred that early marriage happens with grave outcomes such as poor education, psychosocial issues, pregnancy/birth confusions, spousal maltreatment, VVF and death.
Emmanuel Agbonomhen Agege, Joseph Onyedenyifa Odoko, John E. Moyegbone et al.
BACKGROUND In the statistics taken from media brief on ending child marriage in Zambia, (2014) states, “Zambia is the third highest country with cases of child marriages in the SADC region and 19th in the world. In Zambia, about 42 per cent of women aged 20-24 years are married by the age of 18 – a rate that has not evolved since 2002. The rates of child marriages vary from province to province, and are as high as 60 per cent in the Eastern Province. (www.girlsnotbrides.org.) accessed on 20th November 2014. At 13.42) The ZDHS [Zambia Demographic Health Survey] indicates that among married girls aged 15-19 in Zambia, 68 percent have already given birth. In addition, most of the births occurring to girls before age 18 are first births (85 percent), and a majority of these first births occur within marriage. A Central Statistical Office (CSO) report of 2010 carried out by Plan Zambia indicates that “only a few adolescent girls and boys complete upper primary education while the enrolment ratio in secondary education is 13.4% for males and 12.9% for females.” The report concludes that child marriage is the critical driver for this state of affairs. OBJECTIVE This study is aimed at determining the prevalence and factors associated with child marriage in Chipulukusu township of Ndola. Zambia. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted in Chipulukusu Township within the location of Ndola. A pretest questionnaire was used to collect information on child marriage prevalence and factors towards the practice of child marriage and other relevant socio-demographic characteristics. RESULTS the prevalence of early marriage in Chipulukusu township of Ndola district, Zambia was 20.7 % with it being significantly associated with lower social economic status (poverty), lower education level, orphanhood and teen pregnancies CONCLUSIONS the prevalence of early marriage in this study was high. Its prevalence was significantly associated with people of poor backgrounds (poverty), teen pregnancies, lower education level, and orphan hood.
Reviewed by: Sex, Law, and the Politics of Age Child Marriage in India, 1891–1937 by Ishita Pande Divya Kannan Sex, Law, and the Politics of Age Child Marriage in India, 1891–1937 By Ishita Pande. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. This book is a reminder of how the past continues to resonate in contemporary debates involving young people in society. Tracing the complex relationships between law and childhood through a micro-history of the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 (CMRA), Ishita Pande assembles a wide range of archival evidence to destabilise notions of age as a natural phenomenon and critiques liberal legal frameworks for anchoring it. Departing from earlier feminist historical scholarship that has tended to subsume the figure of the child within the “woman’s question” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century India, Pande interrogates chronological age to highlight its inherent fuzziness in constituting childhood as a governable site and pries open the language of liberal law. Divided into three key sections with six richly detailed chapters, this nuanced theoretical narrative pulls together diverse historiographical strands, particularly from feminist legal theory, childhood and sexuality. The first section on juridical and autoptic childhoods draws substantially from the author’s previous scholarship. Here, she brings the reader’s attention to comprehend the nature and extent to which young girls’ bodies were subject to forensic scrutiny in a prejudicial racialised manner and ways in which colonial medicalised classifications of age inscribed new forms of violence on them. Pointing to the tragic case of Phulmoni Dasee, a young girl raped to death by her husband on their wedding night, along with other cases of child-wives, the autoptic and juridical child described by Pande is borne out of colonial projects of knowledge production central to legal attempts to consolidate age as a natural “fact” of life. Her illuminating analysis of various census statistics on children’s ages, medical charts and legal judgments reveals the fixation of liberal law with concretising chronological age despite the evident inherent messiness of statistics related to births and puberty of children in colonial India. The sexualised representations of child-wives, reduced to medical evidence appropriate to these narrow legal readings, accommodated orthodox community practices more than the health and well-being of young girls. Moving slightly away from the legal realm in the second section, Pande provokes the reader to reflect on whom the CMRA intended to protect through a subsequent discussion on sexology. Adding to the recent scholarship such as that of Durba Mitra’s Indian Sex Life and Ashwini Tambe’s Defining Girlhood in India on probing sexuality as foundational to colonial rule, Pande shows the blurring of the public-private dichotomy as sex-educators writing in Hindi and English debated child sexuality to address anxieties regarding “sexually precocious young girls” and excessive male masturbation.1 One may wonder what connects sexology to the debates around CMRA during this period, but Pande deftly demonstrates how sex was conceived as work bound within the “internalisation of the discipline of clock -time” (185) in these writings which attempted to establish age-graded appropriate sexual behaviour. In separating the “child” from the “adult,” notions such as brahmacharya in Hindu ritual discourse was reformulated in a hybrid version suitable for adolescent boys and girls. Here, Pande situates her strategy of reading sideways within a wider canvas and links Hindu sex-education with the circulation of norms of heterosexual monogamy and reproductive normality (185–188). During the debates on the CMRA, such sex-education literature that sought to “sort boys from the men,” simultaneously proclaimed adolescent male innocence, and invited extended state protection for them. The final section of the book deals with the Othering of the Muslim as a deviant form in the discussions on child marriage in India during the time of the CMRA. In critiquing the liberal frameworks of secularism, Pande forays into an arena that has largely been understudied in feminist scholarship on India. She devotes considerable attention towards understanding the challenges posed to the CMRA by alternate readings of the age of consent and marriage under colonial Islamic law in north India. Her analysis of the cases involving young Muslim wives shows...
More than 650 million women alive today were married as children. Relative to efforts to prevent child marriage, efforts to support child brides have received much less attention. This review set out to map and describe interventions that support child brides. We performed a scoping review using seven electronic databases coupled with a grey literature search in January 2022. Data were extracted using a piloted extraction tool and findings were reported in narrative synthesis. A total of 34 projects were included in our review. Most projects focused on improving sexual and reproductive health (SRH) knowledge and behaviours among child brides, which was often achieved through a combination of SRH education, counselling and information provision, along with linkages to SRH services. Some interventions were health facility-based and aimed at improving responsiveness of health service providers to the needs of child brides. Very few described economic interventions as one component of a broader health intervention, and only three interventions focused on improving girls' educational outcomes. We also note the paucity of media-based interventions, despite their popularity among adolescents. Over time, interventions addressing the needs of child brides have increased, but the preponderance of evidence has focused on SRH interventions, with interventions that couple education with adolescent-friendly health services demonstrating promise. Interventions addressing other areas of health and social wellbeing of this group, such as mental health, sexual health, and economic independence, have been overlooked in comparison. The review highlights the need for additional empirical evidence on what works to support child brides.
