2023-10-12 01:44:20
“They are not ready to drive, nor vote, but they can get married”, criticized Alejandra Mora, executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission of Women
One in every five girls or teenagers marries or lives in a stable union before turning 18 in Latin America, the only region where child marriage has not decreased, they warned, this Wednesday (11), together with the Organization of American States (OAS ), experts and activists.
“They are not ready to drive or vote, but they can get married,” criticized Alejandra Mora, executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission of Women. “They are not prepared to manage their own lives, but they end up having early pregnancies and managing new lives”, she denounced, in a session of the Permanent Council (executive body) of the OAS.
“They are not ready to marry a person of the same age, but they end up in inappropriate relationships, where the partners are more than twice their age”, highlighted Alejandra, adding that around one in five girls, and, in some countries, one in four, are in a stable union or married before the age of 18 in the region, the only one in the world in which child marriages and unions have not decreased in the last five years”.
The diagnosis “is dramatic”, agreed Luz Patricia Mejía, technical secretary of the Follow-up Mechanism of the Convention of Belém do Pará (Mesecvi). Eighteen countries in the region prohibit marriage before the age of 18, but 22 allow exceptions.
Functional system
According to a study by the Mesecvi expert committee, the countries that set the minimum legal age for marriage at 18, without exception, are Antigua and Barbuda, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama , Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago. Others decreed 16 years, with exceptions: Brazil, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Lucia and Uruguay.
There are countries where it is not even necessary to have turned 16, with exceptions, such as Argentina, Bahamas, Colombia, Cuba, Guyana, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Venezuela. “In other words, we socially allow this to happen”, highlights Luz, warning that “there is a prevalence of informal unions” involving girls aged 8 or 9.
For Alejandra Mora, the system authorizes “because it is functional, because these girls and adolescents end up providing domestic services, care, work and even sex work”.
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The number of Child, Early and Forced Marriages and Unions (MUITF) in the region “has remained the same over the last 25 years”, said Rocío Muñoz, advisor to the UN Population Fund. If no action is taken, “in the year 2030 we will have the second highest percentage”, she warned, coinciding with the launch of the #beforedelos18NO campaign.
Causes
There are factors that encourage this practice, such as “gender inequality and discrimination, the lack of opportunities and the existence of environments of insecurity and violence”, said Alma Burciaga-González, head of the Latin America and Caribbean section of the NGO Girls Not Brides. If these causes are not discussed, the problem will not be resolved, she insisted, on the International Day of the Girl.
In Latin American countries where laws prohibiting marriage before the age of 18 have been passed, some judges continue to register them, free unions have increased or minors have been criminalized, who do not seek medical centers for fear of being punished.
“Laws alone do not resolve, and will not resolve, practices rooted in our society, unless they are part of a much broader effort”, highlighted Alma. Sofía Quiroga, coordinator of the Jovens Latinas movement, asked the OAS to “not look the other way” to avoid “continuing in debt” to girls and adolescents.
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