In Iraq, a concerning legislative amendment is threatening the rights of children and women. The proposed amendment to the Personal Status Law is designed to legitimise religious marriages, opening the door to child marriages as young as nine years old. Not only does this amendment undermine progress made towards gender equality, but it also places […]
Despite the global progress achieved through international efforts to stop the practice of child marriages, this is still a reality for many children, and Roma children are no exception. Decades of ethnic marginalization, poverty, deeply rooted stereotypes of sexuality, and women’s and girls’ roles in society, combined with the lack of a systematic approach to […]
The widespread and harmful practice of child marriage is regrettably no novelty and it still, affects the children and young girls of Vietnam as an ongoing practice. Poverty, unequal access to education, social context, gender norms, harmful practices, ethnicity, and bride trafficking are found to be the leading causes of the persisting practice of child […]
China has seen a marked increase in the trafficking of young women and girls for the purposes of marriage and sexual slavery. This trend is primarily a consequence of the longstanding one-child policy and the country’s preference for boys, which has catalysed a significant gender imbalance (Barr, 2019). As a result, young men are turning […]
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most ratified international human rights treaty. Since its adoption in 1989, 196 countries have ratified the CRC, including Somalia and South Sudan which ratified it in 2015 (OHCRC, 2022). To date, the United States (US) is the only country in the world that hasn’t […]
In the world, as we know it, marriage stands for a symbiosis of support and understanding. However, the sad reality is that not everyone gets the same chance to make it right. Whilst it is true that forced child marriage practice has decreased over time, we still have a long way to go. Unfortunate instances […]
The year we are slowly leaving behind has been another challenging year for children’s rights worldwide. Children around the world have been faced with many barriers hindering their opportunities to a fulfilled life, such as migration, exploitation, poverty, violence, discrimination, etc. The COVID-19 pandemic which struck a year before has continued to take its toll […]
Despite the development of international and national children’s rights and the intensive work of civil society, Zimbabwe is still home to numerous child marriages, threatening the development and well-being of young girls. When a State is unable or unwilling to combat harmful cultural practices, education is the only option. A public case to shed light […]
COVID-19 has exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities and amplified human rights challenges across the globe. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, young children from at-risk populations – girls in particular – have been forced to face an array of new hardships including an increased risk of child marriage. A recent public statement from UNICEF […]
The Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with the refugee and economic crisis in Lebanon has led to a staggering increase in child marriages amongst Syrian refugees in the country, where the rate of child marriage has increased four folds since the Syrian conflict began (Monla-Hassan & Yacoubian, 2020). While child marriage is a global issue, there are various country-specific […]
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