Child, Early and Forced Marriage in Humanitarian Settings

Calls upon States, with the participation of relevant stakeholders, including girls, women, religious and community leaders, civil society and human rights groups, humanitarian actors, men and boys, and youth organizations, to develop and implement holistic, comprehensive and coordinated responses, strategies and policies to prevent, respond to and eliminate child, early and forced marriage, including in humanitarian settings, and to support already married girls, adolescents and women, including through the strengthening of child protection systems, protection mechanisms, such as safe shelters, access to justice and legal remedies, and the sharing of best practices across borders, in full compliance with international human rights obligations and commitments;

Urges States to enact, enforce, harmonize and uphold laws and policies aimed at preventing, responding to and eliminating child, early and forced marriage, protecting those at risk, including in humanitarian settings, and supporting already married women and girls, and to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the informed, free and full consent of the intending spouses and that women have equality with men in all matters pertaining to marriage, divorce, child custody and the economic consequences of marriage and its dissolution;

Also urges States to remove any provisions that may enable, justify or lead to child, early or forced marriage, including provisions that enable perpetrators of rape, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, abduction, trafficking in persons or modern slavery to escape prosecution and punishment by marrying their victims, in particular by repealing or amending such laws;

Further urges States to promote, respect and protect the human rights of all women and girls, including their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence, and to adopt and accelerate the implementation of laws, policies and programmes that protect and enable the enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences;

Calls upon States to promote and protect the right of women and girls to equal access to education through enhanced emphasis on free and quality primary and secondary education, including catch-up and literacy education for those who have not received formal education or have left school early, including because of marriage and/or childbearing, which empowers young women and girls to make informed decisions about their lives, employment, economic opportunities and health, including through scientifically accurate, age-appropriate comprehensive education, relevant to cultural contexts, that provides adolescent girls and boys and young women and men, in and out of school, consistent with their evolving capacities, with information on sexual and reproductive health, gender equality and the empowerment of women, human rights, physical, psychological and pubertal development and power in relationships between women and men, to enable them to build self-esteem and informed decision-making, communication and risk reduction skills and to develop respectful relationships, in full partnership with young persons, parents, legal guardians, caregivers, educators and health-care providers, in order to contribute to ending child, early and forced marriage;

Also calls upon States, with the support of humanitarian partners, health-care providers and experts, and in full collaboration with concerned communities and other stakeholders, to strengthen monitoring and interventions to prevent, respond to and eliminate child, early and forced marriage in humanitarian settings, including by integrating and harmonizing such interventions into efforts focused on conflict-prevention, the protection of civilians and access to information and services;

Invites all stakeholders to promote the use of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines for Integrating Gender-based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Action;

Encourages States to promote open dialogue with all parties concerned, including religious and community leaders, women, girls, men and boys, parents, legal guardians, and other family members, as well as humanitarian and development actors in order to address the concerns and specific needs of those at risk of child, early and forced marriage within humanitarian settings, and to address social norms, gender stereotypes and harmful practices that contribute to the acceptance and continuation of the practice of child, early and forced marriage, including by raising awareness of its harm to the victims and the cost to society at large;

Calls upon States to promote the meaningful participation of and active consultation with children and adolescents affected by humanitarian settings, especially girls, on all issues affecting them, and to raise awareness about their rights, including the negative impact of child, early and forced marriage, through safe spaces, forums and support networks that provide girls and boys with information, life skills and leadership skills training and opportunities to be empowered, to express themselves, to participate meaningfully in all decisions that affect them and to become agents of change within their communities;

Also calls upon States to promote, respect and protect the rights of women and girls to education through enhanced emphasis on quality education, and to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, information and education, as set out in target 3.7 of the 2030 Agenda, and to promote school enrolment and retention among girls, including in secondary school, and by allowing access to education services for children who have been forced to flee their homes, schools and communities, and to ensure that schools offer them safe and supportive environments;

Urges States to provide specialized child protection services to refugee and displaced children that take into account the particular vulnerabilities and specific protection needs of children, including those who have been forced to flee violence and persecution or who are unaccompanied or separated, including protection and response to the practice of child, early and forced marriage;

Also urges States, with the collaboration of relevant stakeholders, to ensure that the basic humanitarian needs of affected populations and families, including clean water, sanitation, food, shelter, energy, health, including sexual and reproductive health, nutrition, education and protection, are addressed as critical components of humanitarian response, and to ensure that civil registration and vital statistics are an integral part of humanitarian assessments and that livelihoods are protected, recognizing that poverty and lack of economic opportunities for women and girls are among the drivers of child, early and forced marriage;

Further urges States to ensure access to justice and accountability mechanisms and remedies for the effective implementation and enforcement of laws aimed at preventing and eliminating child, early and forced marriage, including in humanitarian settings, including by informing women and girls of their rights under relevant laws, and by improving legal infrastructure and removing all barriers in access to legal counselling, assistance and remedies;

Invites States to consider including, as appropriate, within the framework of relevant national action plans, and in their national reports in the context of the universal periodic review, any best practices and implementation efforts, as well as identified challenges relating to the elimination of child, early and forced marriage, including within humanitarian settings;

Encourages relevant United Nations entities, regional and subregional organizations, civil society and other relevant actors and human rights mechanisms to continue to collaborate with and support States in developing and implementing strategies and policies at the national, regional and international levels to effectively develop measures to prevent, respond to and eliminate child, early and forced marriage, including in humanitarian settings;

Encourages relevant existing mechanisms of the Human Rights Council to give due consideration to the issue of child, early and forced marriage, including in humanitarian settings, during the exercise of their mandates;

Requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to create a web portal to bring together and collate information relating to child, early and forced marriage, including in humanitarian settings;

Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide a written report, with input from all relevant stakeholders, on child, early and forced marriage with a focus on humanitarian settings to the Human Rights Council at its forty-first session, and to provide an oral update thereon to the Council at its thirty-eighth session;