Rethinking debates on underage marriage

11 Oct 2020

International day of the girl 2020: Every year on 11 October, the International Day of the Girl is celebrated. This year under the theme, “My voice, our equal future”, various programs are being conducted around the world. As adolescent girls worldwide assert their power as change-makers, International Day of the Girl 2020 will focus on their demands to: 

• Live free from gender-based violence, harmful practices, and HIV and AIDS  
• Learn new skills towards the futures they choose  
• Lead as a generation of activists accelerating social change

On this year in the occasion of 25the International day of the girl child WOREC is organizing the National Workshop on "Rethinking debates on underage marriage"

Prevalence of child marriage:

Child marriage is regarded as one of the harmful traditional practice existing in Nepal since time immemorial. Nepal has the third highest rate of child marriage in Asia, after Bangladesh and India.^[1] Although the legal age of unions for both is 20, more than a third of young women aged 20-24 report that they were married by the age of 18, and just over one in ten by 15. (Central Bureau of Statistics Nepal, UNICEF Nepal, and Nepal Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2014).The median age at first marriage of women is 17.9 years and men is 21.7 years. (Nepal Demographic Health Survey (NDHS), 2016). As government of Nepal has defined any marriage below 20 years of age is child marriage. Then as per the definition, average number of girls in Nepal had child marriage i.e. at the age of 17.9 years whereas average number of boys, they crossed minimum age of marriage.

Meanwhile, Nepali boys are among the most likely in the world to be child grooms. More than one in ten is married before they reach 18.2 (Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP), New ERA, and ICF International, Nepal Demographic Health Survey 2011). Also, the first ever in-depth analysis of child grooms among 82 countries by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund has ranked Nepal as one of the top 10 countries where there is a high prevalence of child marriage among boys.^[2]

The prevalence of child marriage varies significantly among Nepal’s many ethnic, religious, and caste groups, with rate of child marriage highest among marginalized and lower caste communities; a 2012 study found that among the disadvantaged Dalit caste, the rate of marriage before the age of 19 is 87 percent in Nepal’s Terai region, and 65 percent in the hilly region.^[3]

Nepal aims to end child marriage by 2030 as part of its commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In 2016, the government endorsed a national strategy that provides an overarching framework to end child marriage. Meanwhile, the criminal law of Nepal considers child marriage as a crime and punishes the person who perform or cause to perform child marriage.

What WOREC has done:

WOREC has been conducting various advocacy and lobby related activities relating to child marriage in its working districts. It has further provided various services the survivors of child marriage such as rescue and rehabilitation, etc. Also, under FIRE consortium since July 2019 WOREC has been working with South Asian Initiative - Feminist Inquires into Rights and Equality (FIRE).

Particularly in the issue of child marriage, WOREC views the adolescents from the principles of evolving capacities and best interests of the child to contest the push for criminalising adolescent sexual expression and child marriages. Accordingly, WOREC has been conducting programs to draw attention to drivers of child marriage, including structural conditions that deny opportunities, quality education, support services and resources, all of which compel early onset of adulthood, including marriage. 

 

Objective:

1. It aims to continue the advocacy of WOREC on sharing the experiences, deliberations and dialogues among experts on the issue of child marriage,
2. This program aims review the laws and policies in Nepal relating to child marriage from a feminist and human rights perspective,
3. It aims to identify linkages between issues, acknowledging conflict of rights in the popular strategies and focusing on prevention and survivor support of child marriage.
4. It aims to allow the platform for the adolescent to raise their voice on the issue of child marriage and their related concern in national platform.

 

Participants:

Province and national level stakeholders, NGOs who are working the early and child marriage issues, representatives of adolescent groups, WOREC's staff, Ministry of women children and senior citizen, Ministry of law, office of attorney general Prime minister office, National women commission, National human right commission, Media persons will be expected participants in this program. WOREC will develop the press released after completing the program to incorporate the all recommendations.

Expected outcome:

1. It is expected that some of the debates on early and child marriage will be conducted interlinking with the complex realities and the different socio-economic and political position of adolescents.
2. It aims to recommend the criminal justice system of Nepal to address the root causes of early and child marriage and provide the comprehensive alternatives and outcomes which are akin to preventive rather than punitive model.
3. Overall, it is expected that the experiences, deliberations and dialogues among experts will fortify activists, researchers and organisations working on human rights by providing more perspective, knowledge, and understanding of child marriage and intervention mechanism.
4. Ultimately it is expected to positively impact the lives of women, children and the gender diverse community, who will have their agencies reaffirmed and rights reinforced.