Early Marriage !!

Early marriage is a global issue. It is quite common in the African and Asian countries. However, the consequence of early marriage is serious, which can violate the rights of adolescence, both in this generation and the next.

It affects the education and well-being of millions of children and has a knock-on effect for the poverty and development of communities. Simply put, early marriage can violate children basic rights to a childhood, to an education, to good health and to make decisions about their own lives. Early Marriage Leads To Tragedy For a Young Woman In Africa The physical, emotional and social effects of early marriage are varied, but one of the most common outcomes is the withdrawal of girls from formal education. Traditionally people in some rural villages value marriage more than education of the girls. Many girls stop school because of getting married. Husbands of young wives are often older men, who expect their wives to follow tradition, stay at home and undertake household and child-care duties. Schools often have a policy of refusing to allow married or pregnant girls or girls with babies to return. So all the rules, timetables and physical conditions make it too difficult for a girl to attend school and perform her duties as wife and mother at the same time. Besides education, personal maturity is another problem they have to face in the early marriage. While immature and irresponsible actions may sometimes seem funny before marriage, they can become serious pitfalls within the marriage bond. One of the surest signs of immaturity and irresponsibility in both young men and young women is a lack of willingness to do a reasonable share of work in a consistent, dependable way. A third potential problem of early marriage is the problem of growing apart. This simply means that while two young people in their middle teenage years have much in common, that in many cases, our ideals and goals change as we pass the teenage years, to such an extent that we may easily find ourselves married for life to a person with whom we will ultimately have very little in common. Additionally, having babies too young, brides of early marriage are at an extremely high risk for fistulas and they have a higher risk of being infected with sexually transmitted diseases and at an increased risk of chronic anemia and obesity. Statistically, child brides have a higher risk of becoming a victim of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and murder. In order to prevent the early marriage, we should raise consciousness about the extensiveness of early marriage and seriously consider the potential problems it relates. Government should establish safe spaces for girls to gather and socialize to increase access to economic skills and resources. Additionally, we should raise awareness of the health and rights implications of large spousal age differences and inter generational sex. Efforts should be taken to support married adolescent girls by decreasing their economic vulnerability, offering schooling, civic participation, and livelihoods opportunities, developing interventions to reduce their social isolation. SMGEO 2017