Child, Early and Forced Marriage in Times of Crisis, Including the Covid-19 Pandemic

A/HRC/RES/48/6View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2021.

What subjects does this mandate have?

12 subjects

Accountability Covid-19 Crime Prevention Crisis Management Early Marriage Forced Marriage Gender Equality Gender-Based Violence Girls Women's Education Women's Health Women's Rights

What’s in this document?

33 operative paragraphs

Urges States to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all women and girls, including those subjected to child, early and forced marriage, which include the right to education and the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including the right to sexual and reproductive health, to promote equality in all aspects of marriage and its dissolution, to guarantee equal access for every girl and woman to quality education, as well as education explaining consent, respect for boundaries and what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and how to report it, that builds self-esteem and informed decision-making and communication skills and promotes the development of respectful relationships based on gender equality, inclusion and human rights, skills development programmes, vocational training and lifelong learning opportunities, counselling, social services to protect them from all forms of violence, including sexual and gender-based violence and domestic and intimate partner violence, formal employment to increase their economic independence, and psychological, sexual and reproductive health-care services and medical care, to decrease their social isolation and to increase their economic and political participation, including by establishing or strengthening childcare services and working with communities to change discriminatory social norms;

Calls upon States to take a comprehensive, rights-based, age- and gender-responsive, survivor- and victim-centred and multisectoral approach, in consultation with, and with the full, equal, effective, meaningful and inclusive participation of, women and girls, and with relevant stakeholders, including men and boys, parents and other family members, teachers, religious, traditional and community leaders, minority groups, civil society, organizations led by girls, women’s organizations, youth and feminist groups, human rights defenders, parliaments, national human rights institutions, children’s ombudspersons, humanitarian and development actors, the media and the private sector, that takes into account linkages with other harmful practices in the prevention of, and response to, child, early and forced marriage in the context of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and to pay particular attention to the specific needs of all women and girls, in particular those in vulnerable situations and those experiencing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and violence, stigmatization, exclusion and inequalities, including in humanitarian situations;

Urges States to take comprehensive, multisectoral and rights-based measures to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage, including in times of crisis, and to address structural and underlying causes and risk factors, including by:

Addressing the root causes of gender inequality, including structural, institutional, multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination against women and girls, patriarchal values, discriminatory norms, gender stereotypes, perceptions and customs and harmful social norms, attitudes and behaviours, the socioeconomic drivers of violence and unequal power relations, which perpetuate child, early and forced marriage;

Eliminating discrimination against women and girls in all matters relating to marriage, and guaranteeing women’s and girls’ equality in law and in practice in family life, by opposing all forms of marriage that constitute a violation of the human rights of women and girls and their well-being and dignity;

Respecting, protecting and fulfilling the human rights of all women and girls 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 with respect to bodily integrity, autonomy and agency of women and girls, and adopting and accelerating the implementation of laws, policies and programmes that protect and enable the enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including reproductive rights;

Taking immediate and effective action to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, domestic and intimate partner violence and marital rape;

Upholding all human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls with disabilities, and recognizing that disability can increase the risk of child, early and forced marriage, and the importance of ensuring that services and programmes designed to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage are inclusive of, and accessible to, women and girls with disabilities;

Calls upon States to promote and protect the right of all women and girls to equal access to education, including in times of crisis, by:

Ensuring access to 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, re-entry policies and 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;

Adopting measures to ensure equal access for girls to quality education, to eliminate discriminatory laws and practices that prevent them from having access to, completing and continuing their education, including the transition from primary to secondary education, and to provide incentive mechanisms to this end, to develop and implement programmes, as appropriate, that specifically aim to eliminate gender disparities in enrolment and gender-based bias and stereotypes in education systems, curricula and materials, whether derived from any discriminatory practices, social or cultural attitudes or legal and economic circumstances, and to ensure continued efforts to eliminate all forms of school-related violence against girls, including online, and eliminate obstacles faced by them in access to and use of information and communications technologies, and reaffirming the importance of the right to education as a key to the empowerment of all women and girls and for ensuring equality and non-discrimination;

Ensuring that married and/or pregnant adolescents and young mothers, as well as single mothers, can continue and complete their education, after childbirth, marriage or the dissolution of marriage, by designing, implementing and, where applicable, revising educational policies and programmes to allow them to remain in and return to school and to develop livelihood opportunities through access to technical and vocational education and training and life skills education, including financial literacy, and by providing them with access to health-care services, 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;

Mitigating the impact of school closures in times of crisis, in particular for those learners who are among the poorest and most marginalized, especially girls, by facilitating access to and the continuity of equitable and inclusive quality education for all, including through distance learning, re-enrolling all previously enrolled children and those who were already out of school, providing community awareness of the importance of girls’ education and working to ensure that those subjected to child, early and forced marriage, pregnant girls and women, as well as young parents, also continue to have access to schooling on an equal basis with others, including by enabling access to the Internet and bridging digital divides both between and within countries and the gender digital divide;

Continuing to strengthen the protection of preschools, schools and universities against attacks, making them free from all forms of violence, including by taking measures to deter the military use of schools, such as by considering implementing the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict, and encouraging efforts to provide safe, non-violent, inclusive, effective and enabling learning environments and quality education for all, within an appropriate time frame, including all levels of education in the context of humanitarian emergencies and conflict situations;

Urges States, with the collaboration of relevant stakeholders, including the private sector, communities, not-for-profit organizations and civil society organizations, including in times of crisis, 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, and to promote sustainable development, including by:

Ensuring the rights of all women and girls to inheritance and property, their access equal to that of men and boys to social protection, childcare services and direct financial services, and promoting freedom of movement, women’s equal access to full and productive employment and decent work, as well as their full, equal and meaningful political participation and rights to inherit, own and control land and productive measures;

Ensuring gender-responsive social protection mechanisms, adopting measures to recognize, reduce and redistribute women’s and girls’ disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work and the feminization of poverty, which is exacerbated in times of crisis, including by the COVID-19 pandemic, and addressing the discrimination and gender inequality, including gender stereotypes and harmful social norms, attitudes and behaviours and unequal power relations in which women and girls are viewed as subordinate to men and boys, that are at the root of these imbalances;

Confronting family poverty and social exclusion by investing in family-oriented policies addressing the multidimensional aspects of poverty, focusing on education, health, employment, social security, livelihoods and social cohesion, paying special attention to gender-sensitive social protection measures, child allowances for parents and pension benefits for older persons and protecting, supporting and empowering children, including girls, in child-headed households;

Also urges States 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, by:

Developing and enforcing policies and legal frameworks on and strengthening health systems, including health information systems, that ensure uninterrupted, universally accessible, acceptable, affordable 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, equitable sanitation and hygiene for all, including menstrual health and hygiene and nutrition interventions and prevention and 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, free from mistreatment and violence, as essential services in times of crisis, and repealing discriminatory laws relating to third-party authorization for health information and health-care services;

Ensuring continuity and further strengthening protection and support services for women and girls who experience all forms of violence, including sexual and gender-based violence and domestic violence, in times of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic, especially girls at risk of child, early and forced marriage and already married girls and women affected by this harmful practice, and designating protection shelters, hotlines and help desks, health and support services and legal protection and support as essential services available to all women and girls, in addition to establishing safeguarding measures and raising awareness and providing training for police, members of the judiciary, first responders, health workers and education and child services staff;

Further urges States to enact, enforce, harmonize and uphold laws and policies aimed at preventing, responding to and eliminating child, early and forced marriage and that respect and protect bodily integrity and autonomy, protecting those at risk, including in times of crisis, and supporting women and girls subjected to child, early and forced marriage, to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the informed, free and full consent of the intending spouses, and to promote equality in all aspects of marriage and its dissolution;

Calls upon States to ensure that all initiatives to draft, amend and implement criminal laws addressing child, early and forced marriage are part of comprehensive rights-based, gender-responsive and cross-government prevention and response strategies and coupled with protection measures and services for victims, survivors and those who are at risk of being subjected to harmful practices, including child, early and forced marriage;

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;

Encourages States to increase public funding for community-based organizations, including organizations led or initiated by young people, including girls, focusing on the human rights of women and girls and child, early and forced marriage, including in times of crisis, and to mitigate the impact of crisis response measures on the ability of civil society organizations and other relevant stakeholders working at the local and national levels to continue their work with girls, families and local communities to prevent and respond to child, early and forced marriage;

Also encourages States to consult with civil society organizations, including girl-led and youth-led organizations, as well as community-based organizations, focusing on the rights of women and girls and child, early and forced marriage, in crisis response planning and delivery to ensure that the needs of women and girls affected by child, early and forced marriage are not overlooked and are adequately addressed in crisis response and that crisis response measures do not exacerbate factors that contribute to child, early and forced marriage and other harmful practices or to sexual and gender-based violence;

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, mainstreaming gender equality and human rights perspectives into justice systems, ensuring equal access to legal aid, including legal advice, assistance and representation, as well as access to judicial and other legal remedies, addressing legal inconsistencies, training law enforcement officers, members of the judiciary and professionals working with women and children and ensuring oversight of the handling of cases of child, early and forced marriage, and working to ensure that these mechanisms and remedies remain accessible in times of crisis or are re-established as quickly as possible when affected by crisis;

Also urges States to hold persons in positions of authority, such as teachers, religious leaders, traditional authorities, politicians and law enforcement officials, including at the local government level, 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;

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, as well as working to ensure that the registration of births and marriages remains accessible in times of crisis or is re-established as quickly as possible when affected by crisis;

Affirms the need for States and relevant United Nations entities and agencies to improve the collection and use of quantitative, qualitative and comparable data, while observing the principles of confidentiality and informed consent, on violence against women and harmful practices, including in humanitarian settings and in the context of public health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, disaggregated by sex, age, disability, civil status, race, ethnicity, migratory status, geographical location, socioeconomic status, education level and other key factors, as appropriate, to enhance research on and the dissemination of evidence-based and good practices relating to the prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriage, and to strengthen monitoring and the assessment of the impact of existing policies and programmes as a means of ensuring their effectiveness and implementation;

Calls upon States to promote the meaningful participation of and active consultation with children, adolescents and youth, including already married girls, on all issues affecting them, to strengthen their voice, agency and leadership, to raise awareness about their rights, including the negative impact of child, early and forced marriage, through safe spaces, forums and support networks, including in digital spaces, that provide information, life skills and leadership skills training and opportunities, including catch-up and literacy education, and lifelong learning opportunities, remote learning opportunities and childcare, as needed, that empower them, allow them to express themselves, to participate meaningfully in all decisions that affect them and to become agents of change within their communities, and to encourage men and boys also to act for change in their communities by being more involved in information and awareness-raising campaigns, intergenerational dialogues and peer education and training programmes, in partnership with women and girls;

Requests, in order to increase understanding about the concept of forced marriage, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to organize a two-full-day workshop focusing on the adverse impact of forced marriage on the full and effective enjoyment of all human rights by all women and girls, and also requests the Office of the High Commissioner to submit a report on the workshop in an accessible format to the Human Rights Council at its fifty-second session;

Also requests the Office of the High Commissioner to organize the above-mentioned workshop with the participation and involvement of women and girls at risk of, and those subjected to, forced marriage and to collaborate with all relevant stakeholders, including relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, special procedure mandate holders, international and regional organizations, States, scholars, national human rights institutions and civil society organizations, in order to ensure multi-stakeholder participation at the workshop.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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