Originally published on the CGS blog on November 19, 2015.
When you’re a teenager, there is a lot to worry about—school grades, friend groups, identity—but for 700 million women alive today, they also had to worry about their husbands. While in the west we usually complain about our parents as teenagers and our mothers-in-law as adults, child brides often need to worry about their mothers-in-law as teenagers. They enter into the household of their spouse with no economic or social power, expected to cook, clean, and be obedient to their new family at the expense of their own health and well being.
You thought dealing with your spouse’s parents was hard. In NPR’s #15Girls piece on a child bride in India, 15-year-old Namir is fighting to keep her grades up in order to attend a boarding school that gives her an excuse to live away from her husband. While young girls in some high schools dream of weddings, drawing images of their dresses and fantasizing about a happily-ever-after, others’ weddings mark the beginning of slavery akin to Cinderella before she met her Prince Charming.
I don’t need to list the ways marrying children off is harmful, but I will. Girls who married before the age of 18 were twice as likely to be “slapped, beaten, or threatened by their husbands,” in a study conducted by the International Center for Research on Women. Worldwide, pregnancy is the one of the leading causes of death for girls between 15 and 19 years of age; infant and maternal mortality are much higher when the mother’s body is not yet ready. Stunted education restricts their economic power, hindering their ability to educate and protect their children.
A 12-year-old bride died in 2010 after damage to her internal organs following intercourse.
But confronting a problem so deeply ingrained into a society and culture is not accomplished with shaming, finger wagging, and condescending tsks. Rather, trying to understand the issues that might lead a family to effectively sell a daughter and lending an empathetic ear is the first step.
Having a child is expensive, as anyone who has paid rent or a mortgage can attest. In addition to the food, shelter, and miscellaneous costs that inevitably bite into one’s budget, schooling for a girl can be an expensive and risky proposition. Transportation alone may mean a dangerous and high-priced trip to a place far from home. Girls in the poorest 25% of the population are 2.5 times more likely to become child brides than children of the richest. When a poor, rural farmer is unable to feed his children, a deal that would ensure she is sheltered and fed in addition to providing a payout for the remaining family members can seem attractive. Add a culture with strong social pressures encouraging him to trade a daughter in order to secure the wife his brother needs, and you have a man crying at his daughter’s wedding for reasons very unlike the ones you would expect.
Education that’s accessible to girls is the most important factor in incentivizing and allowing a family to postpone her marriage or move-in date with the in-laws. The Veerni Institute provides education and boarding to those girls, and Girls Not Brides works to end child marriages.There are examples of change occurring, but it’s necessary to put a spotlight on these issues as well. Bringing awareness can help bring about a cultural change. Supporting girls’ education can help even more.
November 20th is Universal Children’s Day, as well as the release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2. Let us take this weekend to celebrate the healthy, happy children in our lives and the inspiring role models they have to look up to–from the fictional Katniss to the real Nujood––and do what we can to support them. Urge President Obama to bring these issues to the forefront with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
