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LONDON, May 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Four million girls are at risk of child marriage in the next two years due to the new coronavirus pandemic, a global charity said on Friday, as activists warned that the crisis It could undo decades of work for End of Practice.
The deepening poverty caused by loss of livelihoods is likely to lead many families to marry their daughters early, World Vision said.
“When you have a crisis like conflict, disaster or pandemic, child marriage rates go up,” the Erica Hall charity child marriage expert told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“If we don’t start thinking about how to prevent it now, it will be too late. We cannot wait for the health crisis to come first.”
Activists said the risks were exacerbated by the fact that schools were closed and organizations working to combat child marriage had more difficulty operating during closings.
The pandemic is also hindering girls’ access to reproductive health services, which could lead to an increase in teenage pregnancies and increased pressure to marry.
Worldwide, an estimated 12 million girls marry each year before the age of 18, nearly one girl every three seconds.
A UN report last month predicted that the pandemic could lead to an additional 13 million child marriages over the next decade.
Girls Not Brides, a global association of 1,400 organizations working to end child marriage, said the members were extremely concerned.
“People on the ground say this looks bad. We are likely to see a large number of child marriages, “said Faith Mwangi-Powell, executive director of Girls Not Brides.
“This is something I heard from India, from Africa, from Latin America. Some say this could undo decades of work we have done to reduce child marriage.”
She said school closings were a particular concern.
“Schools protect girls. When schools close, the risks (of marriage) increase a lot, ”said Mwangi-Powell.
“Even after COVID, many girls are unlikely to go back to school, which is very scary. We have to make sure they do.”
The World Vision Hall said there was already anecdotal evidence of an increase in child marriages in South Sudan, Afghanistan and India, where the charity recently worked with police to stop seven marriages after calls to helplines.
Hall said there was a fear that some people would use locks to hide child marriages, but she hoped the increase would come later as families struggle with the financial consequences.
Parents can marry girls as a way to reduce the number of boys who have to maintain or access dowries.
“It really is a survival mechanism. Parents don’t do it maliciously, they just don’t see any alternative,” Hall said. (Report by Emma Batha @emmabatha; Katy Migiro edition. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers the lives of people around the world who are struggling to live freely or fairly. Visit news .trust.org)
