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Tens of thousands of girls across Asia are being forced into marriage by desperate families mired in poverty due to the coronavirus pandemic, as activists warn that years of progress to address the practice is unraveling.
Child marriage has long been common in traditional communities from the Indonesian archipelago to India, Pakistan, and Vietnam, but their numbers have been declining as charities moved forward by promoting access to education and childcare services. women’s health.
These improvements are eroding as the impact of the virus causes massive job losses, leaving parents struggling to feed their families, experts say.
“All the progress we’ve made in the last decade will really take a hit,” explains Shipra Jha, Asia Engagement Director for the NGO Girls Not Brides.
“Child marriage is firmly rooted in gender inequality and patriarchal structures. What happened is that it got worse in the Covid era,” he adds.
Poverty, lack of education and insecurity drive child marriage even in stable times, so periods of crisis exacerbate the problem, says the charity.
Worldwide, an estimated 12 million girls marry each year before the age of 18, according to the UN.
But the organization has now warned that unless urgent action is taken to address the economic and social impact of the virus, there will be another 13 million child marriages in the next decade.
In Asia, charities report that the snowball of forced unions has already started, estimating that tens of thousands are already affected, although concrete data has not yet been collected.
“There has been an increase in child marriages during this lockdown period. There is rampant unemployment, job loss. Families can barely make ends meet, so they believe it is better to marry off their young daughters,” says Rolee Singh, who runs India’s “One Step 2 Stop Child Marriage” Campaign.
– ‘Generation of COVID’ –
Muskaan, 15, says her mother and father, who are street cleaners in the Indian city of Varanasi, force her to marry the 21-year-old next door and have six other children to feed.
“My parents are poor, what else could they have done? I fought as hard as I could but finally had to give in,” explains the teenager through tears.
Save the Children has already warned that violence against girls and the risk of forced unions, especially among minors, “could become a greater threat than the virus itself.”
And while education has been hailed as the central principle in the battle against child marriage, activists warn that with the lockdowns that force hundreds of millions out of school, girls in the poorest parts of the world will be hit the hardest. .
Earlier this month, 275 former world leaders, education experts and economists urged governments and organizations like the World Bank to ensure that the consequences of the coronavirus do not create a “COVID generation … stripped of their education and a fair chance. in the 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 greater opportunity,” said an open letter signed by dignitaries such as Ban Ki-Moon, formerly Secretary General. from the ONU. Carol Bellamy of UNICEF and former Prime Ministers such as Shaukat Aziz of Pakistan and Gordon Brown and Tony Blair of the UK.
In India, activists say there has been a rise in forced unions because families see the practice as a solution to financial problems caused by Covid-19, unaware of the repercussions for young women.
“We have also seen children marry because the other party offers money or some kind of help in return. These families do not understand the concept of trafficking, it is a worrying trend,” says activist Singh.
– Baby boom –
Jha, who is based in Delhi, agrees that economic pressure is part of the problem, but insists that child marriage is complex, particularly in Asia, where there are fears that school closings will mean teenagers inactive turn on each other and damage family reputations.
“The greatest fear that families have is that (adolescent girls) may approach a child, begin to explore their sexuality or become pregnant. Honor is closely related to this situation … That is something huge,” he adds.
He adds that the problem has worsened as governments transfer resources from key development areas such as education, family planning and reproductive health to combat the virus.
Indonesia’s family planning agency has warned that the nation, which is already home to 270 million people, could experience a huge birth boom early next year due to school closings and declining access to contraception.
At 18, Lia is still a minor, but she has already been married twice. Their first marriage was forced after she was seen alone with the man who was not a relative, a taboo in Indonesia’s conservative West Sulawesi region where she lives.
The community insisted that she married the man despite an age difference of three decades.
She escaped from that unhappy situation and found a new love, but her dreams of a high-flying career have stopped once again.
With little access to family planning advice, she became pregnant during the confinement. Her family insisted that she marry the 21-year-old father.
“I used to dream of becoming a flight attendant,” recalls the teenager, who asked that her real name not be used.
“But she failed and ended up in the kitchen,” interrupts her new husband Randi, who has not declared their marriage to the authorities.
Indonesia, which has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world according to UNICEF, raised the legal age of marriage from 16 to 19 years for both sexes last year in an attempt to tackle the problem.
But there are loopholes: local religious courts can approve such unions.
Indonesian Islamic authorities officially allowed more than 33,000 child marriages between January and June this year, compared to a total of 22,000 for all of 2019, according to the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection.
Indian leader Narendra Modi has also said the country will raise the age of marriage, from 18 to 21, but Girls, Not Brides says such measures are difficult to enforce and do not address root causes.
In Vietnam, the legal age for marriage is 18, but UNICEF says one in ten girls has been married before. Among ethnic groups, the figure is almost double.
Local charity Blue Dragon says it has seen girls as young as 14 getting married and a rise in boy’s unions since schools closed due to the pandemic.
May 15, who is from the mountain tribes of northern Hmong, married her 25-year-old construction worker boyfriend in June after she became pregnant when the virus swept through the country.
Her parents couldn’t afford to keep her and the baby, so she moved to her husband’s family farm for six hours.
“They are farmers and they couldn’t earn enough for us,” he explains.
Now, instead of doing his homework, he does the housework and helps with the harvest.
“I don’t think much about my future,” he admits.
UNICEF says ending child marriage will help break intergenerational cycles of poverty.
It says: “Empowered and educated girls are better able to feed and care for their children, leading to smaller, healthier families. When girls are allowed to be girls, everyone wins.”
burs-str-hrl / pb / lto
