The numbers are dramatic!
More than 22,000 girls die every year due to premature pregnancies and births – the reason: child marriages! That’s 60 girls a day worldwide!
The international non-governmental organization “Save the Children” published these figures on World Girls’ Day (October 11th).
Terrifying facts
The “Global Girls Report 2021: The Rights of Girls in Crisis” also shows: By 2030, the lives of around 10 million girls will be at risk from child marriages!
The progress made over the past 25 years has probably prevented 80 million child marriages. However, the positive development is stagnating. And that even before Corona.
Rather, the global pandemic has exacerbated social inequalities – and favored child marriages. Growing poverty, school closings and overburdened health services increased the risks for women and girls during the lockdowns.
West and Central Africa: 26 deaths a day! Almost half (9,600) of all estimated deaths from early marriages occur there. The death rate among teenage mothers is four times higher in the region than in other parts of the world.
South Asia: 2000 deaths annually (six per day)
East Asia and the Pacific region: 650 deaths (two per day)
Latin America and the Caribbean: 560 deaths a year (almost two a day)
“Early marriage is one of the worst and deadliest forms of sexual and gender-based violence against girls,” says Inger Ashing, managing director of “Save the Children International”. Because: “Every year millions of girls are forced into marriages, often with much older men. They are no longer allowed to be children, have to leave school and even their lives are in danger. “
“Complications during childbirth” are “the most common cause of death among teenage girls”. She calls for: “Governments must prioritize the safety and health of all girls and ensure that they are protected from child marriage and birth-related deaths”.
Share of child marriages is alarmingly high
Even in countries where child marriage is illegal, the practice is still common, as is the case in Burkina Faso, where there is a particularly high number of early marriages. According to the most recent figures (as of 2010), the proportion of women (aged 20 to 24 years) who were married in childhood was 52 percent in the country.
- Front runner: In Niger the share in 2012 was 76.3 percent. In other words: More than every fourth woman between the ages of 20 and 24 married when she was a child (under 18).
- Also in Mali in 2018 it was more than half (53.7 percent).
- Laut „Save the Children“ sind in Nigeria (43.4 percent), Ethiopia (40 percent), Somalia (36) and the Dominican Republic (35.9) affected slightly less than half of the girls.
- In the remaining countries analyzed, the proportion is lower, but still high. Including: Sierra Leone (29.6 percent) that Ivory Coast (27) Bolivia (19,7), Egypt (17,4) Indonesia (11) and the Lebanon (6).
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