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Child Marriage Trumps Girls’ Education in 26 Countries, CARE Finds in Report

© 2015 Josh Estey/CARE
© 2015 Josh Estey/CARE

“Vows of Poverty” report identifies countries where more girls marry before age 18 than enroll in secondary school; CARE calls for greater support of adolescent girls to mark International Day of the Girl.

BISHNUPUR, Bangladesh (Oct. 5, 2015) — Girls in an alarming 26 countries are more likely to be forced into marriage before age 18 than to enroll in secondary school, according to a report released today by the poverty-fighting organization CARE.

Titled “Vows of Poverty” and released to mark International Day of the Girl, the report provides a snapshot of the forces driving girls into marriage and out of school in the 26 countries while also describing what needs to happen to reverse those trends. “No girl should be more likely to walk down the aisle before age 18 than into a high school classroom,” said Michelle Nunn, president and CEO of CARE. “The fact that this is the norm in so many countries should be a wake-up call for all of us who care about adolescent girls and want to give them a chance to reach their full potential. Every time a girl is forced into a marriage or prevented from attending school, it’s a missed opportunity to improve that girl’s life and strike at the roots of poverty.”

Niger tops the list, with 76 percent of girls marrying before age 18 and only 10 percent enrolling in secondary school. Chad, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Somalia follow, each with at least a 40 percentage point gap between their rates of child marriage and of secondary school enrollment for girls. Many of the underlying causes of child marriage – including social norms that devalue women and girls – apply across all the countries. Other forces are localized, from the trafficking of girls in Mauritania to dowry considerations in Bangladesh to civil conflict in countries such as Afghanistan and Mali.

Worldwide, about 39,000 girls are forced to marry each day. That’s another child marriage every 2 seconds. Meanwhile, 62 million girls are not in school, and half of them are adolescents.

Secondary school enrollment is a critical marker because although many countries have closed or nearly closed their gender gaps in primary education, they still face significant gaps in secondary education. Secondary school typically coincides with the onset of adolescence, when girls become more vulnerable to a host of gender-related risks, from domestic work and sexual coercion to violence, pregnancy and marriage.

Jobeda Begum, now 21, was a top student in northern Bangladesh before being forced into marriage at age 15 and, shortly after, yanked out of school to help with household chores. “I wanted to study to 12th grade,” said Jobeda, whose story is featured in the report. “. . . It’s a dream long gone.”

Vows of Poverty” also highlights some of the promising solutions to child marriage that are taking hold from Bangladesh and Nepal to Ethiopia and Malawi. In the report, CARE asks people to mark International Day of the Girl by signing a letter to U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama thanking her for promoting an end to child marriage through the Let Girls Learn initiative and urging her to support a strong inter-agency adolescent girl strategy. Such a strategy is essential to assuring that the U.S. does its part in putting the world on track to meet the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), enacted last month in an effort to end global poverty and close equality gaps by 2030. The goals call for an end to child marriage by 2030 and for all girls to complete secondary school.

About CARE

Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package®, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside poor girls and women because, equipped with the proper resources, they have the power to lift whole families and entire communities out of poverty. Last year CARE worked in 90 countries and reached more than 72 million people around the world. To learn more, visit www.care.org. The report: Is available for download at www.care.org/vowsofpoverty or through media contacts below.

Media Contacts

CARE has child marriage and girls’ education experts available for interviews around the world, including many of the countries detailed in “Vows of Poverty.” Contact Nicole Harris at nharris@care.org , +1 404-735-0871; or Brian Feagans at bfeagans@care.org, +1 404-979-9453.

Resources

Tackling the Taboo (English)

Tackling the Taboo highlights gender-transformative programs from organizations working at the intersection of child marriage and...

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Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: CARE’s Global Experience (Arabic)

Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18, marking the start of their lives as wives and mothers well before they are...

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Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: CARE’s Global Experience (French)

Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18, marking the start of their lives as wives and mothers well before they are...

Read More

Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: CARE’s Global Experience (Spanish)

Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18, marking the start of their lives as wives and mothers well before they are...

Read More

Child Marriage Trumps Girls’ Education in 26 Countries, CARE Finds in Report

“Vows of Poverty” report identifies countries where more girls marry before age 18 than enroll in secondary school; CARE calls for greater support of adolescent girls to mark International Day of the Girl. BISHNUPUR, Bangladesh (Oct. 5, 2015) — Girls in an alarming 26 countries are more likely to be forced into marriage before age 18

Read More

Child Marriage Trumps Girls’ Education in 26 Countries, CARE Finds in Report

“Vows of Poverty” report identifies countries where more girls marry before age 18 than enroll in secondary school; CARE calls for greater support of adolescent girls to mark International Day of the Girl. BISHNUPUR, Bangladesh (Oct. 5, 2015) — Girls in an alarming 26 countries are more likely to be forced into marriage before age 18

Read More

Tipping Point Community Participatory Analysis

Findings from CARE’s Tipping Point Project Community Participatory Analysis Study, which was designed to deepen understanding of the contextual factors and root causes driving the prevalence of child marriage in particular regions of Nepal and Bangladesh, countries with some of the highest rates of child marriage in the world.

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Child, Early and Forced Marriage and the Control of Sexuality and Reproduction

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Addressing Child Marriage in Nepal through Behavior Change Communication and Social Mobilization

The goal of the Chunauti (which means “challenge” in Nepali) project, which was supported by USAID and implemented by CARE, was to...

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TESFA: Improving The Live of Adolescent Girls in Ethiopia

This 16 page evaluation showcases the final results of the groundbreaking program designed and implemented by CARE Ethiopia and and evaluated by the International Center for Research on Women. The program, named Towards Economic and Sexual Reproductive Health Outcomes for Adolescent Girls, or TESFA, impacted the lives of 5,000 child brides.

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Guidance for GBV Monitoring and Mitigation in Non-GBV Sectoral Programming

This document aims to address the increasing demand for clear guidance on how to practically and ethically monitor and mitigate gender-based violence (GBV) within non-emergency, international development programming, in which GBV is not a specific programmatic component. Specifically, it draws on existing GBV-related guidance, as well as input from a group of experts, to provide recommendations for preventing and/or responding to unintentional risk, threat, or violence against individuals related to programmatic interventions. These recommendations describe ways to take stock of the programmatic environment with regard to GBV in general, as well as targeted suggestions on how to track GBV-related incidents and issues throughout the program cycle.

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Tipping Point Program Summary

4 page brief that describes CARE's child marriage prevention programming in Bangladesh and Nepal, including our focus on underlying...

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CI position on Child Marriage for the Girl Summit

CARE's policy recommendations to global governments and civil society organizations on how to end child marriage, prepared for the 2014...

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Child Marriage Brief

CHILD MARRIAGE: Complicated Problem, Simple Solution Value Girls.

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TESFA Photovoice

Married adolescents who were in TESFA took photos to show us what changed in their lives.  Take a look and see this program through...

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TESFA Brief

TESFA is a 3 year project funded by the Nike Foundation that works to improve economic, and sexual and reproductive health outcomes for...

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Child Marriage Factsheet 2014

Digging Up the Roots to Replant the Future. This one page fact sheet shows key statistics about child marriage globally, and in...

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Tipping Point Year One

The Tipping Point initiative is addressing child marriage through a dynamic process of innovation, insight (analysis and learning), and...

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Girl Declaration

CARE is a signatory to Girl Declaration and helped with its development.

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A CARE Program to End Child Marriage

Poverty is one of the reasons families give their daughters to be married at an early age. I was almost one of those child brides.

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Child Marriage: A Promise of Poverty

Not every marriage lasts forever, but early marriage has lifelong consequences for girls.

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“Maybe Someday, But Not Today”

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Ending Child Marriage in Ethiopia

This 2 page brief from 2008 describes CARE Ethiopia's Healthy Unions Program.

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Child Marriage: Questions and Answers

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Child Marriage: A Promise of Poverty

Not every marriage lasts forever, but early marriage has lifelong consequences for girls.

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