Child, Early and Forced Marriage

Calls upon States, with the participation of relevant stakeholders, including women and girls, parents and other family members, religious, traditional and community leaders, civil society, organizations led by girls, women’s organizations, youth and human rights groups, men and boys, the media and the private sector, to develop and implement holistic, comprehensive and coordinated responses and strategies to eliminate child, early and forced marriage, to support girls and women who are at risk or have been subjected to this practice, including through the strengthening of child protection systems, protection mechanisms such as safe shelters, access to justice and the sharing of best practices across borders;

Also calls upon States to enact, enforce and uphold laws and policies aimed at preventing and ending child, early and forced marriage and protecting those at risk, to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the informed, free and full consent of the intending spouses and to amend relevant laws and policies to remove any provision that enables perpetrators of rape, sexual abuse or abduction to escape prosecution and punishment by marrying their victims;

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

Calls upon States to enact, build awareness of, enforce and uphold laws concerning a minimum age of marriage and to progressively amend laws with lower ages of marriage and/or ages of majority;

Also calls upon States to promote the meaningful participation of and active consultation with children and adolescents, 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;

Further calls upon States and encourages other stakeholders to address gender stereotypes, discriminatory social norms 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 and the cost to society at large and by providing opportunities for discussion, in this regard, among others, within communities, including with the involvement of girls and boys, women and men, religious, traditional and community leaders, and parents and other family members, on the benefits of ending child, early and forced marriage and ensuring that girls and boys receive an education;

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;

Urges States to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage by removing barriers to education, including by ensuring that married girls and boys, pregnant girls and women and young parents continue to have access to schooling, improving access to quality formal education and skills development, especially for those living in remote or insecure areas, improving the safety of girls at and on the way to and from school, providing safe and adequate sanitation, including for menstrual hygiene management, and adopting policies to prohibit, prevent and address violence against children, especially girls;

Urges Governments, with the collaboration of relevant stakeholders, to tackle poverty and lack of economic opportunities for women and girls as drivers of child, early and forced marriage, including by ensuring the rights of women and girls to inheritance and property, their equal access with men and boys to social protection, direct financial services, support and microcredit, to encourage girls to continue their education, to develop livelihood opportunities through access to technical and vocational education and training and life skills education, including financial literacy, and to promote women’s equal access to full and productive employment and decent work, as well as equal political participation and rights to inherit, own and control land and productive measures;

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 by informing women, girls and boys about their rights under relevant laws, 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, improving legal infrastructure and removing all barriers to access to legal counselling, assistance and remedies;

Urges Governments to respect and protect the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental 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 and available quality, gender-responsive, adolescent-friendly health services, sexual and reproductive health-care services, information and commodities, HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care, mental health services and nutrition interventions;

Also urges Governments to promote and protect the human rights of all women and girls, including the right of women, and those girls who have been subjected to child, early and forced marriage, 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,8 the Beijing Platform for Action9 and the outcome documents of their review conferences;

Calls upon States to develop, in consultation with women and, as appropriate, 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 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-care and education;

Encourages relevant United Nations entities and agencies, regional and subregional organizations, within their respective mandates, civil society and other relevant actors and human rights mechanisms to continue to collaborate with Member States in developing and implementing strategies and policies at the national, regional and international levels to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage, as well as to support those who were married as girls and boys;

Encourages Governments to include information on progress towards eliminating child, early and forced marriage in their national reports to relevant international treaty bodies and the universal periodic review and within the national voluntary reviews conducted through the high-level political forum on sustainable development under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit a comprehensive report to the General Assembly, before the end of its seventy-second session, on progress towards ending child, early and forced marriage worldwide, including, for the consideration of Member States, action-oriented recommendations for eliminating this practice, using information provided by Member States, United Nations bodies, agencies, funds and programmes, civil society and other relevant stakeholders;