Tens of thousands of girls across Asia are being forced into marriage by desperate families plunged into poverty because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as campaigners warn years of progress tackling the practice is being undone.
Child marriage has long been common in traditional communities from the Indonesian archipelago to India, Pakistan and Vietnam, but numbers had been decreasing as charities made inroads by encouraging access to education and women’s health services.
These improvements are being eroded as the effects of the virus cause mass job losses leaving parents struggling to feed their families, experts say.
Illustration: Lance Liu
“All of the gains we’ve made in the past decade are really going to suffer,” said Shipra Jha, head of Asia engagement at non-governmental organization Girls Not Brides.
“Child marriage is firmly rooted in gender inequality and patriarchal structures. What’s happened is that it’s become compounded in the COVID era,” she added.
Poverty, lack of education and insecurity drive child marriage even in stable times, so periods of crises exacerbate the problem, the charity said.
Worldwide, an estimated 12 million girls are wed every year before the age of 18, according to data from the UN.
The organization has now warned that unless urgent action is taken to tackle the economic and social impact of the virus — an additional 13 million child marriages could take place in the next decade.
In Asia, charities report the snowball of forced unions has already begun, estimating tens of thousands are already affected — although hard data are yet to be collated.
“There has been an increase in child marriages during this lockdown period. There is rampant unemployment, job loss. Families are barely able to make ends meet, so they think it’s best to get their young daughters married off,” said Rolee Singh who runs the “1 Step 2 Stop Child Marriage” campaign in India.
‘COVID GENERATION’
Fifteen-year-old Muskaan said that she is being forced to marry the 21-year-old boy next door by her mother and father, who are street cleaners in the Indian city of Varanasi and have six other children to feed.
“My parents are poor, what else could they have done? I fought as much as I could, but eventually had to give in,” the teenager said in tears.
Save the Children has already warned that violence against girls and the risk of forced unions, particularly among minors, “could become more of a threat than the virus itself.”
While education has been hailed as the central tenet in the battle against child marriage, activists warn that with lockdowns forcing hundreds of millions out of school, girls in the poorest parts of the world would be worst affected.
Earlier this month, 275 former global leaders, education experts and economists urged governments and organizations such as the World Bank to ensure the fallout from the pandemic does not create a “COVID generation... robbed of their education and a fair chance in life.”
“Many of these children are adolescent girls for whom being in school is the best defense against forced marriage and the best hope for a life of expanded opportunity,” said an open letter signed by dignitaries including former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, former UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy and former prime ministers, such as Pakistan’s Shaukat Aziz, and Britain’s Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
In India, activists say there has been a surge in forced unions because families see the practice as a solution to financial woes caused by COVID-19, without realizing the repercussions for young women.
“We have also seen children get married because the other party offers money or some kind of assistance in return. These families don’t understand the concept of trafficking — it’s a worrisome trend,” Singh said.
BABY BOOM
Jha, who is based in Delhi, agrees that the economic pressure is part of the problem, but insists child marriage is complex, particularly in Asia where there are fears that school closures due to lockdowns mean idle teenagers would turn to each other and damage family reputations.
“The biggest fear that families have is that [teen girls] may become close to a boy, start exploring their sexuality or become pregnant. Honor is closely linked to this situation... That’s a huge thing,” she said.
The problem has been aggravated as governments shift resources from key development areas such as education, family planning and reproductive health to battle the virus, she added.
Indonesia’s National Family Planning Coordinating Board has warned the nation, already home to 270 million people, that it could see a huge baby boom early next year due to school closures and dwindling access to contraception.
At 18, Lia is still underage, but has already been married twice. Her first union was forced on her after she was seen alone with the man who was not a relative — taboo in the conservative region of West Sulawesi in Indonesia where she lives.
The community insisted that she wed the man despite a three-decade age gap. She escaped that unhappy situation and found new love, but her dreams of a high-flying career have been put on hold once more.
With little access to family planning advice, she became pregnant during lockdown. Her family insisted she marry the 21-year-old father.
“I used to dream of becoming a flight attendant,” said the teen, who asked that her real name not be used.
“But she failed and ended up in the kitchen,” added her new husband Randi, who has not declared their nuptials to authorities.
SHATTERED DREAMS
Indonesia — which has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, according to UNICEF — last year raised the legal age for wedlock from 16 to 19 for both sexes in a bid to tackle the problem. There are loopholes — local religious courts can approve such unions.
Indonesia’s Islamic authorities officially permitted more than 33,000 child marriages between January and June this year, compared with 22,000 for the whole of last year, according to data from the Indonesian Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also said the country would raise its marriage age from 18 to 21, but Girls, Not Brides has said that such moves are tough to enforce and do not address the root causes.
In Vietnam, the legal age to wed is 18, but UNICEF says one in 10 girls are married before. Among ethnic groups the figure is almost double that.
Local charity Blue Dragon said it has seen girls as young as 14 be married and that child unions have increased since schools closed due to the pandemic.
May, 15, who is from a northern Hmong community, married her 25-year-old construction worker boyfriend in June after getting pregnant as the virus swept the country. Her parents could not afford to keep her and the baby, so she moved six hours away to her husband’s family farm.
“They’re farmers and they could not earn enough for us,” she said.
Now, instead of homework, she does housework and helps harvest the crops.
“I don’t think much about my future,” she said.
UNICEF said that ending child marriage would help break intergenerational cycles of poverty.
“Empowered and educated girls are better able to nourish and care for their children, leading to healthier, smaller families. When girls are allowed to be girls, everybody wins,” it said.
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