Child marriage is widespread across much of Latin America and the Caribbean, accounting for around 23% of marriages in the region, despite laws against it.
The impact of child marriage and early unions (where one of the members is aged below 18 years of age) on girls and their societies can be devastating. Evidence shows that there is a strong link between child marriage and early unions with child pregnancy, maternal and infant mortality, lower education levels for girls and lower ranking on the human development index. And child marriage and early unions make girls more vulnerable to contracting sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.
At a high-level side event co-hosted by the Permanent Missions of Panama and Guatemala to the United Nations in collaboration with UN Women, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and UNAIDS, lessons learned and programmatic and policy options to address child marriage in Latin America and the Caribbean were presented.
In the event, which took place on 17 March at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, United States of America, during the sixty-first session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the participants recognized that child marriage and early unions are a violation of human rights and are a grave threat to the lives, health and future development of girls.
The event focused on the importance of supporting legislative reforms to raise the legal age of marriage to 18 and promoting programmes to empower girls and young women.
The event identified successful approaches and strategies for reducing the rates of child marriage. For example, Panama—where an estimated 26% of girls are married before the age of 18 and approximately 7% before the age of 15—has reformed its national legislation on the legal age of marriage. The minimum legal age for marriage in Panama is now 18 years, as is the age of consent. Previously, with parental permission girls aged as young as 14 years and boys aged 16 years could marry. In Guatemala, thanks to advocacy actions led by UN Women, civil society and international cooperation, reforms to the civil and penal codes have been approved to increase the minimum age for marriage to 18 years.
Since 2015, UNAIDS has partnered with UN Women, UNICEF, UNFPA and PAHO/World Health Organization in a joint initiative on eliminating child marriage and early unions that supports government actions to ensure that, throughout their life cycle, the multiple needs of girls and women are recognized and guaranteed.
UNAIDS is working with countries to eliminate gender inequalities and all form of violence and discrimination against women and girls by 2020, as outlined in the 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on Ending AIDS.
