South Asia has world’s highest number of child brides, says UN report
A new study by the UNICEF revealed that in Bangladesh, India and Nepal many parents saw marriage as the best option for daughters who had limited options to study during the Covid-19 induced lockdowns in the subcontinent
The UN-backed study also found that a large number of families were pushed by financial strains during the pandemic to marry their daughters young in order to reduce living costs at home. Representational image
New Delhi: Fresh data released by the UNICEF on Wednesday revealed that South Asia has the highest number of child brides globally as increased financial costs and closure of educational institutions due to the Covid-19 pandemic forced poor families with little or no income to marry off their young daughters.
The UN agency’s data showed there are 290 million child brides in the region, accounting for nearly 45% of the global total of such children.
“The fact that South Asia has the highest child marriage burden in the world is nothing short of tragic,” said Noala Skinner, UNICEF’s regional director for South Asia, in a statement calling for an end to the unfair practice.
“Child marriage locks girls out of learning, puts their health and wellbeing at risk and compromises their future. Every girl who gets married as a child is one girl too many,” she said.
A new study by the UNICEF that also included interviews and discussions across 16 locations in Bangladesh, India and Nepal found that many parents saw marriage as the best option for daughters who had limited options to study during the Covid-19 induced lockdowns in the subcontinent.
The legal age of marriage for women is 20 in Nepal, 18 in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and 16 in Afghanistan. It is 16 in Pakistan except for Sindh province, where the minimum age is 18.
The UN-backed study also found that a large number of families were pushed by financial strains during the pandemic to marry their daughters young in order to reduce living costs at home. The agency added that potential solutions identified in discussions include enacting social protection measures to counter poverty, protecting every child’s right to education, ensuring an adequate framework to enforce the law and making more efforts to address social norms.
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