Consequences of Child, Early and Forced Marriage

Urges States to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of women and girls, including those subjected to child, early and forced marriage, to promote equality in all aspects of marriage and its dissolution and to address their specific needs, such as through targeted programmes that provide social services to protect them from sexual and gender-based violence, including domestic and intimate-partner violence, increase their decision-making power and financial literacy, make it easier for women to seek formal employment and increase their economic independence, improve women’s and girls’ access to education, skills development programmes, vocational training and lifelong learning opportunities, ensure their equal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and decrease their social isolation, including by establishing or strengthening childcare services and working with communities to change discriminatory social norms;

Also 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 women and girls subjected to child, early and forced marriage, 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;

Further 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;

Calls upon States to ensure the timely registration of births and marriages, including by identifying and removing all physical, administrative, procedural and any other barriers that impede access to registration, especially for individuals living in rural and remote areas, and by providing, where lacking, mechanisms for the registration of customary and religious marriages;

Also calls upon States to develop and implement measures at all levels to end child, early and forced marriage, including national and subnational action plans where appropriate, and to make adequate resources available across relevant sectors, including health, nutrition, protection, governance and education;

Further 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, have left school early or were forced to leave school because of, inter alia, marriage, pregnancy and/or childbirth, on re-entry policies and on vocational training and skills development, which empower young women and girls subjected to child, early and forced marriage 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;

Calls upon States to ensure that married and/or pregnant adolescents and young mothers, as well as single mothers, can continue and complete their education, and in this regard design, implement and, where applicable, revise educational policies to allow them to remain in and return to school, providing them with access to health-care and social services and support, including childcare and breastfeeding facilities and crèches, and to education programmes with accessible locations, flexible schedules and distance education, including e-learning, and bearing in mind the important role and responsibilities of fathers, including young fathers, in this regard;

Urges Governments to respect, protect and fulfil the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including the right to sexual and reproductive health, through the development and enforcement of policies and legal frameworks and the strengthening of health systems, including health information systems, that make universally accessible, acceptable and available quality, gender-responsive, adolescent-friendly health services, sexual and reproductive health-care services, information, education and commodities, HIV and AIDS prevention, testing, treatment and care, mental health services and psychosocial support, and nutrition interventions and prevention, treatment of and care for obstetric fistula and other obstetric complications by providing the continuum of services, including family planning, prenatal and postnatal care, skilled birth attendance, emergency obstetric care and post-partum care;

Calls upon Governments to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all women and girls, including those who have been subjected to child, early and forced marriage, to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters relating 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 and the Beijing Platform for Action, and the outcome documents of their review conferences;

Urges Governments, with the collaboration of relevant stakeholders, to tackle poverty, the lack of economic opportunities for women and girls, and other entrenched economic incentives and inequalities that act as drivers of child, early and forced marriage and as obstacles to leaving a forced or abusive relationship, including by ensuring the rights of women and girls to inheritance and property, their equal access with men and boys to social protection, childcare services and direct financial services, to encourage women and girls to continue their education, including through their re-enrolment in school after childbirth, marriage or dissolution of marriage, to develop livelihood opportunities through access to technical and vocational education and training and life skills education, including financial literacy, and to promote freedom of movement, women’s equal access to full and productive employment and decent work, as well as full and equal political participation and rights to inherit, own and control land and productive measures;

Calls upon States to strengthen laws and regulatory frameworks that promote the reconciliation and sharing of work and family responsibilities for women and men, including by designing, implementing and promoting family-responsive legislation, policies and services, such as parental and other leave schemes, increased flexibility in working arrangements, support for breastfeeding mothers, the development of infrastructure and technology, and the provision of services, including affordable, accessible and quality childcare and care facilities for children and other dependents, and promoting men’s equitable responsibilities with respect to household work as fathers and caregivers, which create an enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment;

Also calls upon States to develop and implement, in consultation with and with the participation of women and girls, and integrate into humanitarian responses, from the early stages of humanitarian emergencies, measures to address the increased vulnerability of women and girls to child, early and forced marriage, and to protect women and girls, in particular those subjected to child, early and forced marriage, from sexual and gender-based violence and exploitation during humanitarian emergencies, situations of forced displacement, armed conflict and natural disaster, including by ensuring their access to such services as health and education, as well as strengthening follow-up and interventions to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage in humanitarian settings, and to address the needs of those affected;

Further calls upon States to ensure that all initiatives to draft, amend and implement criminal laws addressing child, early and forced marriage are part of a comprehensive approach and coupled with protection measures and services for victims and survivors and those who are at risk of being subjected to harmful practices, including child, early and forced marriage;

Urges Governments to take measures to support girls and women who have been subjected to child, early and forced marriage, and calls upon States and all relevant actors to strengthen, inter alia, the development, enactment, implementation and monitoring of relevant legislation and protection mechanisms, such as safe shelters, counselling and other support services, as well as programmes focusing on, inter alia, education, health, livelihood, autonomy and decision-making that support the empowerment of girls and women who have been subjected to child, early and forced marriage;

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 and protecting the rights of women and girls subjected to this harmful practice, including by informing women, girls and boys about their rights under relevant laws, including in marriage and at its dissolution, improving legal infrastructure, removing all barriers to access to legal aid, including legal advice, assistance and representation, as well as to access to judicial and other legal remedies, addressing legal inconsistencies, training law enforcement officers, the judiciary and professionals working with women and children and ensuring oversight of the handling of cases of child, early and forced marriage;

Calls upon States, with the participation of women and girls and of relevant stakeholders, as appropriate, including men and boys, parents and other family members, teachers, religious, traditional and community leaders, civil society, organizations led by girls, women’s organizations, youth, feminist groups, human rights defenders, parliaments, national human rights institutions, children’s ombudspersons, the media and the private sector, to develop, implement and monitor holistic, comprehensive and coordinated responses and strategies to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage, to support girls and women who are affected or at risk, who have fled such a marriage or whose marriage has dissolved, and widowed girls or women who were married as girls, including through the strengthening of child protection systems, protection mechanisms such as safe shelters, access to justice, the sharing of best practices across borders and the collection of relevant, reliable and disaggregated data;

Urges States to hold persons in positions of authority, such as teachers, religious leaders, traditional authorities, politicians and law enforcement officials, accountable for not complying with or upholding laws and regulations relating to violence against women and girls, including child, early and forced marriage, in order to prevent and respond in a gender-sensitive manner, to end impunity and to avoid the abuse of power leading to violence against women and girls and the revictimization of victims and/or survivors of such violence;

Encourages Governments to include information on progress towards eliminating child, early and forced marriage, including best practices and implementation efforts, in their national reports to relevant international treaty bodies and for the universal periodic review and within the national voluntary reviews conducted through the high-level political forum on sustainable development;

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, on their request, in developing and implementing strategies and policies and in strengthening and building capacity for data, indicators and reporting systems for analysing, monitoring and publicly reporting on progress at the national, regional and international levels based on evidence, and to assist States in effectively developing measures to prevent, respond to and eliminate child, early and forced marriage;

Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to submit, to the Human Rights Council at its forty-seventh session, a written report, with input from all relevant stakeholders, on progress, gaps and challenges in addressing child, early and forced marriage, and measures to ensure accountability at the community and national levels, including for women and girls at risk of and those subjected to this harmful practice and to provide an oral update thereon to the Council at its forty-fourth session;

Also requests the High Commissioner to organize two regional workshops to discuss progress, gaps and challenges in addressing child, early and forced marriage, and measures to ensure accountability at the community and national levels, including for women and girls at risk of and those subjected to this harmful practice, with the involvement of regional mechanisms, relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes and civil society organizations, in the most cost-effective and efficient manner, and to reflect the outcomes of the workshops in the above-mentioned written report to be presented to the Human Rights Council at its forty-seventh session.