Sierra Leone is being praised for taking a huge step to protect children’s rights by signing into law a bill to end child marriage. President Julius Maada Bio signed the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act into law on July 2 at a ceremony organized by First Lady Fatima Bio, who started the “Hands Off Our Girls” campaign to protect girls from rape and early marriage.
Under the law, any man who marries a girl under the age of 18 could face at least 15 years in prison and a fine of around $4,000. The law also punishes anyone who arranges or attends such marriages while also offering support including counselling and protection to girls already affected by the practice.
Sierra Leone has one of the highest child marriage rates in Africa, with 30 percent of girls married before turning 18, according to the 2019 Sierra Leone Demographic and Health Surveys. Activists hope that this new law will better protect girls in the West African country and inspire other African countries with high cases of child marriage to follow suit by criminalizing the practice for children to live their best lives.
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Girls Not Brides, a global organization committed to ending child marriage, has warned that each year, 15 million girls are married before the age of 18, and if the current trends continue, the number of girls who marry as children will reach 1.2 billion by 2050.
Girls who marry as children are often not able to achieve their full potential, as they leave school early, suffer domestic violence and do not get access to proper healthcare. Some even die during pregnancy and childbirth as a result of complications because their bodies are not ready. Child marriages affect the economies of several countries and it is worrying that some countries particularly in West and Central Africa still allow the practice to continue.
The following African countries have high cases of child marriage despite the ratification of several international conventions banning this practice:
Niger
According to a report by Girls Not Brides, 76% of girls in Niger are married before their 18th birthday and 28% are married before the age of 15. A 2017 World Bank/ICRW study estimated that ending child marriage in Niger could save the country more than $188 million but the practice persists largely due to poverty, low level of education, customs and religion, and the belief that women and girls are somehow inferior to men and boys.
Girls are also made to marry early in areas where there is insecurity and violence as families believe that marriage protects them from violence or sexual harassment. The Civil Code sets the minimum age of marriage at 18 years for boys and 15 years for girls, however, the majority of unions in Niger take place under customary law. The country has taken several initiatives to end child marriage but these initiatives are mostly blocked by social groups or religious leaders, Girls Not Brides said.
Chad
The minimum age of marriage in Chad is 18 for girls and boys. In 2015, the Parliament of Chad gave its approval to an ordinance signed by President Idriss Deby to increase the age of marriage from 15 to 18 years old. But conflicts with other laws mean people are marrying earlier. Sixty-one percent of girls are married before the age of 18 and 24% are married before the age of 15, with the highest rates of child marriage being found in the Peul/Foulbe ethnic group. Besides reasons such as poverty, religion and displacement, and polygamy, 57% of women with no education or only pre-primary education were married before they turned 18, compared to only 21% who had completed higher education.
Central African Republic
Poverty, conflict, religion, gender norms and FGM drive child marriages in the Central African Republic, like the other two countries. Child marriage is reportedly more common among Muslim communities and with the country having one of the lowest GDPs in the world, many families marry off their girls in exchange for bride price and to free them from the burden of catering to the needs of their female children. It is therefore not surprising that 61% of girls in the Central African Republic are married before the age of 18 and 26% are married before 15.
Mali
With Mali being one of the poorest countries in the world, some parents believe that marrying off their daughters at a young age will give them a better life. A 2015 report revealed that 51% of women in its poorest households were married before the age of 18, compared to 36% in the richest households.
All in all, 54% of girls in Mali are married before the age of 18 and 16% are married before they are 15. A 2017 World Bank report stated that ending child marriage in Mali could generate an additional $174.8 million in productivity gains. In 2015, as part of the African Union Campaign to End Child Marriage in Africa, Mali launched its national campaign titled “Education for girls: a means to eliminating early child marriage”. It has since been actively developing national action plans to eliminate child marriage. In 2021, it committed to a five-year action plan at the Generation Equality Forum in France to increase efforts toward improving gender equality.
Mozambique
A 2016 study cited by Girls Not Brides stated that during the El Niño-induced drought in Mozambique, many families used child marriage “as a coping mechanism in a context of food scarcity, poverty and economic insecurity.” Indeed, the drivers of child marriages in the country are poverty, lack of access to education, adolescent pregnancy, and polygamy, among others. 53% of girls in Mozambique are married before they are 18 and 17% are married before the age of 15.
The 2019 Law on Preventing and Combating Premature Unions sets the minimum age for unions at 18 but it hasn’t done much to reduce the high prevalence of early marriage in Mozambique, especially in the province of Cabo Delgado, where there is an ongoing Islamist insurgency.
According to Save the Children, cases of early and forced marriage in the province are increasing, as girls are abducted and forced into marriage by armed groups or by families expecting a bride price.
