Consequences of child marriage

Consequences of child marriage

Similarly, divorce rates are also increased in young girls in comparison to boys due to multiple factors that magnify the increasing number of social issues for girls.

There are number of young marriages that come to an early end in the province. Girls who marry young, are more prone to be divorced at an early age. Child brides are often disempowered and dependent on their husbands. child marriage in iran is also very common.

  The occurrence of divorce is annually increasing leaving girls with more social problems that they as child divorcees or widows are simply not capable of handling. The enormous responsibility for a young girl to go from a life, then mother and now a divorcee or widow is catastrophic. These girls are more vulnerable to persistent poverty if their spouses die, abandon, or divorce them. Given that girls in ECM are often significantly younger than their husbands, they become widowed earlier in life and may face associated economic and social challenges for a greater portion of their life than women who marry later.

This problem threatens to increase with the expanding youth population in the developing world. In addition as ECM is considered an interfamilial binding contract, the breaking of it, i.e. divorce can have serious consequences both for the families and for the girl. Even those girls with the option of divorcing an abusive spouse are vulnerable because they have little earning power, education, and financial support. Widowhood  is  one  of  the  most  neglected  gender  and  human  rights  issues within ECM. These young girls, long invisible in many countries are most vulnerable.

  This is particularly acute in rural areas, where   traditions,   customs   and   discriminatory interpretations  of religious  codes  often  dominate and  where  there  is  a  glaring  lack  of  the modern age  of marriage  legislation.  The  consequences  of  widowhood which  include  social ostracisation, economic  dependency,  marginalisation,  legal  discrimination,  political  insensitivity  and human rights violations. All these consequences are intensified by the fact that they are being faced by young child widows who are extremely vulnerable. Child widows are the legacy of ECM.

Read more: Feminization of Poverty-The Cause and Consequence of Early Childhood Marriages in Iran