- A report of the UN Secretary General on child and forced marriages has taken note of national policies and capacity-building initiatives taken in India
- to promote gender and child-sensitive health services,
- including for girls subjected to such alliances, and
- “Promising experiences” about supporting those affected by the practices.
- The Report covers the period from June 2018 to May 2020, said that several States adopted legislative and policy measures to raise the minimum age of marriage and also put in place comprehensive strategies to combat child, early and forced marriage.
- For example, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Mozambique, the Niger and Uganda developed national policies and guidelines and undertook capacity-building initiatives
- To promote more gender and child-sensitive health and protection services, including for girls subjected to child, early and forced marriage.
- Promising experiences with programmes aimed at ending those practices and supporting already married girls and women affected by the practices.
- In India, adolescents are involved in the “Ladli Samman” campaign, which consists of the mapping of social and economic vulnerabilities and linking them to social protection schemes and counselling support.
- Families suffering from financial instability are more likely to regard daughters as an economic burden, in particular when unable to finance a daughter’s education, and consequently justify their early marriage.
- In India, the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage supported the Kanyashree Prakalpa programme of West Bengal through conditional cash transfers to encourage their continued education and prevent child marriage.
- According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in the past decade,
- 25 million child marriages have been prevented globally thanks to the increased rate of girls’ education,
- the proactive investment of governments in adolescent girls and
- The raising of the public’s awareness of the harms and illegality of child marriage.
- However, globally, the total number of married girls is estimated to be 12 million per year.
- The prevalence rate of child, early and forced marriage remain high, in particular in some regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which represent 18% and 44%, respectively, of the global burden.
- A marked reduction in the prevalence rate was recorded in South Asia, however, the prevalence in Latin America and the Caribbean has remained stagnant for 25 years.
- No region is on track to eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030, as set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
