According to article one of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the term “child marriage” is used to describe a legal or customary union between two people, of whom one or both spouses is below the age of eighteen.1 In fact, One in three girls in a low and middle-income country (excluding China) will marry before the age of 18. Moreover, One in nine girls will marry before their fifteenth birthday, and in the least-developed countries child marriage is even higher—nearly one in two.2 Even if one gave their consent to marry, anyone under the age of eighteen is not able to make a fully informed choice whether or not to marry, even if it will get your family out of poverty. While child marriage affects both sexes, girls are unfairly affected as they remain to be the majority of the victims. Child marriage should be considered a human rights violation. It consists of devastating and even possible life threatening consequences most would not think of. But, Despite national laws and international agreements, child marriage remains a real and present threat to the human rights, lives and health of children, especially for girls, in more than a hundred countries. Thus, if people around the world gain more knowledge and interest on child marriage, the chances of countries prohibiting child marriage may increase. Ultimately allowing girls and boys to grow up and marry who and when they desire.
While child marriage may be getting numerous families out of poverty, many families do not know of the life threatening consequences that come with marrying at a young age. Although child marriage can both involve a boy or a girl, most of the time the girls are the victims of child marriage. For girls, it is actually far worse than many peop...
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...of child marriage.
To conclude, child marriage is a serious problem, and it should be considered a human right violation. It does not only put the child’s life at risk through serious health issues and life threatening consequences, such as HIV, malnutrition, and complications with child birth and pregnancy but, it also is violating the rights of certain human beings. As stated above, there are numerous articles in the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights that would disagree with child marriage, thus supporting child marriage should be considered a human rights violation. In todays society, if people around the world gain more knowledge and interest on child marriage, the chances of people actually making a difference will greatly increase. Ultimately allowing the children whom would normally lay victim to child marriage live and grow as normal people would.
An example she presented in the article was a case of 16 years old girl that was married to her uncle at the age of 9, and pregnant at 12 in which she developed obstetric fistula after the death of her baby, she was recovering her 4th fistula surgery. This not even close to covering the horrors of childhood marriage in which many young girls are suffering around the global. She concludes that Fistula is 100% preventable, but because many of the young girls undergoing this, is in areas where there is no access to health care and resource, they are badly suffering this and even resulting in death. An important message she addresses is that child bride is preventable as this fistula is if it is taken into consideration in our
Since the dawn of civilised society, children have suffered from losing one or both of their parents. “Half of all American children will witness the breakup of a parent’s marriage” (Bilotta, 1). Children being brought out in single house household are more likely to become depressed and have problems with their peers. In addition “Family Timeline” by ProQuest, in 1920 points out that “The divorce rate is approximately eight per 1,000 marriages” and today that rate has skyrocketed to 50% (Proquest,1). Proquest clearly rationalizes why the divorce rate has risen. “As more women become educated and join the workforce divorce becomes economically possible for them” (Proquest, 2). Marriages have often been a necessity for
Some of these marriages are extremely dysfunctional while others seem to be practical. These marriages are considered different from forced marriages and are an acceptable type of marriage in Afghan society. Some arranged marriages lead to poor or horrific outcomes for the brides in order to separate from her spouse. Occasionally these marriages shift into being forced marriages. In the article “Afghan girls bound by family betrothals” the author states “In Kapisa province, just north of Kabul, an 18-year-old girl shot and killed herself because her family would not break off her three-year-engagement to a drug addict.” This exhibits how certain family’s decisions for their children are atrocious. In addition it shows how an arranged marriage turned into a forced marriage. At times young women may run away from as a threat tactic to their family reported by the article “Afghan girls bound by family betrothals.” A 17-year-old girl who ran away from her home for a few days resulted in her parents letting her marry the man that she loved rather than who they set her up with. This shows how some parents would be tolerant enough to let his own daughter marry the person she
In conclusion, it important to be educated about same sex marriage and same sex adoption. Prej-udice and discrimination due to ignorance need to stop. Statistic showed that same sex parenthood is not harmful to the children in any way, the total opposite it can be beneficial to the children because same sex couple tend to work as a team and be more acceptable of what their children want. It is a matter of time before more and more countries approved laws where same sex couples can get marry and have children.
Discrimination against women by policy, laws, and legislation around the world is still a major obstruction to gender equality. These include laws discriminating against divorce, marital rape, employment, education, sexual harassment, and obedience laws. In countries like Kenya, Zambia, and Malaysia, laws prohibiting gender discrimination are present but do not protect women against laws on marriage, divorce, and custody of children. In Uganda, practice of polygamy, bride prices, and forced marriages are still in practice. In studies done by the U.S. Census Bureau, the average age of marriage for an American woman is 26.9 years, and most states feature an age requirement of 18 years. However, in places like Guatemala, Japan, and Syria the age requirement for marriage differ between the sexes. In Japan, girls can marry at 16, while boys marry at 18. In Syria, the limit is 17 years for girls ...
The deleterious consequences such as poor health, abuse, and low literacy are the devastating effects of child marriage which are demonstrated throughout the novel. The parlous implications when examining a young wife’s health include early death, extremely high risks of fistulas, and the risk of being infected with sexually transmitted disease. Commonly, girls are “admitted to hospitals shortly after marriage in a state of sh...
...eople joined in marriage. Sex before marriage is not promoted, and as stated before to avoid unwanted pregnancy sex before marriage should be prohibited to decrease the amount of abortions. Furthermore, the point is that the fetus’ did not give the mother his or hers consent to terminate their life.
Many people would happily accept an opportunity to have their daily stress reduced by employing help with not only their children but also with daily household responsibilities of cooking and cleaning. Especially in this fragile economic state the average family living in America cannot afford the luxury of hiring a house cleaner, cook or nanny. However, there are polygamists families in America have the abilities of multiple adults contributing to the same household because of the lifestyle choice of having multiple spouses. The extra help comes at a price for woman, by having to share her husband with other woman and raising her children in the difficult and uncommon lifestyle. Polygamy takes a total acceptance and understanding of it by the mothers, in order for polygamy not to have a negative psychological impact on her children. Children are the innocent victims of polygamy; consequently, they grow up witnessing a tense environment filled with their mother’s insecurities and rivalries with the other wives, which sequentially end up harming the child in the end. Furthermore, polygamy can be psychologically damaging to children because of the increased rates of not only welfare fraud, domestic violence, and underage marriages but also child abuse and neglect.
Ludden, Jennifer. “Can Child Marriages be Stopped?”. npr.com. 25 Nov 2013. Web. 10 Feb 2014
Teenage pregnancy is an important and a widespread problem in India revolving to public health studies. Although, in India minimum age of marriage for a female is 18 and male is 22, the law is not been strictly followed by the society. It is now leading to serious social and medical troubles such as maternal and child health problems. Data of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3 discovered that 16% of women, aged 15-19 years, have already started childbearing. Most of the teenage mother in India has a joint family background. They are not allowed to take any decisions according to their desires. Their life is been shaped by family me...
According to Reiss F. (2015), in the United States today, thousands of children under the age of 18 have recently taken marital vows- mostly girls married adult men. People have tried arguing that it is illegal since they would be considered underage, but with parental consent it is legal. Women who started off as strong and independent slowly finished off as scared and ashamed. The women were scared because they had no say in denying the marriage and they couldn’t stop whatever was occurring, such as sexual contact, or abuse. They were ashamed because their friends would judge them if they ended up having children and just for how their lives changed. From possibly living with family and going to school, to then move away from your family
Girls all over the world are forced into marriages due to financial necessity, tradition and to ensure their future. Most of these girls married are at a young age: “One third of the world’s girls are married before the age of 18 and 1 in 9 are married before the age of 15”( “Child Marriage Facts and Figures”). The young ages of those being married reveal how crucial it is to resolve this problem. When child marriage occurs the parents of the bride usually chose the groom for their daughters; and these grooms can be three times older than the young brides. Some children are brought into the world of marriage at the of 8 or sometimes less depending on their cultural views. The following can be used to help reduce the impact of early marriage: reinforcing laws that are passed against child marriages, and providing information on contraceptives to victims of early marriage. The most efficient way of resolving the problem of child marriage is through educating the people who practice it about its adverse effects.
Since the 1970s, many countries in the world the problem of adolescent sexuality and first sexual experience at young age appeared. To make matters worse, the trend of adolescent pregnancy became increasingly serious. From the fact sheet of World Health Organization, there are about 16 million adolescent girls giving birth every year – most in low- and middle-income countries. Among them, an estimated three million girls aged 15-19 undergo unsafe abortions every year. In low- and middle-income countries, over 30% of girls marry before they are 18 years of age; around 14% before the age of 15 and complications from pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among girls aged 15-19 years.
Because of child marriage many kids lose the opportunity to continue with school. When kids don’t go to school they lose out on many employment opportunities to help the household financially. When children miss out on employment opportunities it keeps the cycle of poverty going. Parents should not be marrying off their children so young just because they cant provide for them, there is other options instead of throwing out your daughter. Every child is valuable and deserves to live a childs life and have fun and just worry about being a kid instead of having a grow up while still yet a child. Each child should enjoy their child years, it only happens once and then real life hits, no child should be deprived of a childhood. Parents should step up and take responsibility for the life that they brought into the world. These countries that waddle in child marriage are some of the poorest because the cycle of poverty starts all over again as these two people joined together have to figure out to make finances work when they couldn’t even finish school to get a good job. Parents should let their children be children, their lives should be more valuable than any money they can get for marrying off their
Statistics show that in 1998, 2,256,000 couples became married, and 1,135,000 couples became divorced (Fast 1,2). For every two couples getting married, there is one that is getting divorced. In fact, half of ALL marriages end in divorce (Ayer 41). That is a sad reality to face. Those percentage rates increase as the age of the participant’s decrease. It seems these days, fewer and fewer teens between the ages of 14 and 18 are getting married. This is a change for the better. Teens are usually not prepared for marriage. Marriage comes with many responsibilities; most of which teens are not prepared to handle. “Early marriage, though possessing certain inherent dangers, is widely practiced in contemporary America” (Teenage 1). Even if teens feel they have the potential for a lasting marriage, they should still wait to become married.