The Bride Price for Children

The Bride Price: Consequences of Child Marriage Worldwide is a video containing moving images by Stephanie Sinclair - recipient of the 2007 UNICEF Photo of the Year - on the many issues of child marriage. Sinclair's photos include compelling images of child brides in Afghanistan, Ethiopia and India. Sinclair's previous work on child marriage includes a photo essay of Afghani child brides published in The New York Times.

Want to Do More?

Check out the ICRW advocacy page for more information on the consequences of child marriage for girls and boys and U.S. international development assistance, and learn what you can do to make a difference.

The Bride Price Video Link

Child Marriages: What we Know

Who is affected?

More than 100 million girls in the developing world will be married during the next 10 years.


Although the definition of child marriage includes boys, most children married under the age of 18 years are girls.


While the practice has decreased globally over the last 30 years, it remains common in rural areas and among the poorest of the poor.


In Southern Asia, 48%—nearly 10 million—of girls are married before the age of 18.


In Africa, 42% of girls were married before turning 18.


In Latin America and the Caribbean, 29% of girls are married by age 18.



What are the effects of child marriage?

Child brides are more likely than unmarried girls to die younger, suffer from health problems, live in poverty and remain illiterate.

Child Marriage Around the World
Percentage of girls marrying before the age of 18
1 Niger 76.6
2 Chad 71.5
3 Bangladesh 68.7
4 Mali 65.4
5 Guinea 64.5
6 Central African Republic 57.0
7 Nepal 56.1
8 Mozambique 55.9
9 Uganda 54.1
10 Burkina Faso 51.9
11 India 50.0
12 Ethiopia 49.1
13 Liberia 48.4
13 Yemen 48.4
15 Cameroon 47.2
16 Eritrea 47.0
17 Malawi 46.9
18 Nicaragua 43.3
18 Nigeria 43.3
20 Zambia 42.1

Source: ICRW 2007

Premature Pregnancy: Child brides almost always bear children before they are physically - or emotionally - ready.


Maternal Mortality: Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die during child birth or pregnancy than older women. Pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of mortality for girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide.


Infant Mortality: Mortality rates for babies born to mothers under age 20 are almost 75% higher than for children born to older mothers. The children that survive are more likely to be premature, have a low birth weight, and are more at risk for contracting HIV/AIDS.


Health Problems: Premature childbirth can lead to a variety of health problems for mothers, including fistula, a debilitating condition that causes chronic incontinence. Girls with fistula are often abandoned by their husbands and ostracized by society. There are approximately 2 million girls living with fistula, and 100,000 new cases every year.


HIV/AIDS: Married girls may be more likely to contract sexually transmitted disease, including HIV/AIDS, than unmarried girls. Young girls are more physically susceptible to STD's, have less access to reproductive education and health services and are often powerless to demand the use of contraception.


Illiteracy: Child brides are often pulled out of school and denied further education. Their children are also more likely to be illiterate.


Poverty: Child brides - already poor - are isolated and denied education and employment opportunities, making it difficult for them break out of the cycle of poverty.


Abuse and Violence: Child brides are more likely to experience domestic abuse, and violence than their peers who marry later.


Mental Health: Violence and abuse can lead to post-traumatic stress and depression.


Isolation and Abandonment: Child brides are often isolated from their peers and abandoned if they develop health problems like fistula.



What can be done to prevent child marriage?

Education


Girls with a secondary education are up to six times less likely to marry young compared to girls with little or no education.


Education delays the age at which a woman marries.


Education provides an alternative opportunity for girls other than marriage.


Education increases socio-economic status and earning potential for girls.


Employment/Poverty Reduction

The world's poorest countries have the highest rates of child marriage. Families often marry girls off to lessen their economic burden and provide a future for their daughters.


Girls from poor families are about twice as likely to marry young than girls from better-off households.


Girls who earn a wage may be seen as an economic asset, not a burden, by their families.


Girls who earn a wage are less dependent on others to provide for them.

Percentage of girls marrying before the age of 18

Child Marriage Around the World
Percentage of girls marrying before the age of 18
1 Niger 76.6
2 Chad 71.5
3 Bangladesh 68.7
4 Mali 65.4
5 Guinea 64.5
6 Central African Republic 57.0
7 Nepal 56.1
8 Mozambique 55.9
9 Uganda 54.1
10 Burkina Faso 51.9
11 India 50.0
12 Ethiopia 49.1
13 Liberia 48.4
13 Yemen 48.4
15 Cameroon 47.2
16 Eritrea 47.0
17 Malawi 46.9
18 Nicaragua 43.3
18 Nigeria 43.3
20 Zambia 42.1

Source ICRW: 2007

Child Brides: Stolen Lives

Here is a preview of a program on PBS Now about Child Brides.





Enjoy this special preview of the hour-long NOW special airing Friday, October 12 (check local listings). In the show, NOW travels to Niger, Guatemala, and India to expose the tragic consequences of early marriage, and the hope behind efforts to end the global practice.

Maria's Journey

For Educators
"Child Brides: Stolen Lives" is a one-hour documentary from NOW, the weekly newsmagazine on PBS. NOW's production team traveled to Niger, India and Guatemala to report on a global custom that devastates lives and keeps communities from prospering.

They need to stop child marriages.

Child Marriages Or Child Brides Justified

You tube has a video of Shaykh Bilal Philips attempting to say that child marriages or child brides isn't the same thing. You see they are married, and according to him once a girl hits puberty according to law they can marry. If a man for 50 years old for example wishes to take an 11 year old as his bride THAT is not Pedophilia. He took examples of France, England, USA people going to countries like asia that sell their children off for other's pleasures, and leave as a good cause for pedophilia. They aren't doing the same thing. They marry the girls. If the girl Menstrual period has started then she is ready for marriage. They said that is consenual marriage. HOW a child of that age knows what they are consenting to I will never know. I'm sure some are very aware, and don't wish to do this...but then you have 'honor' issue.



He mentions that 1,400 YEARS ago in England and other countries marriage at that age happened all the time! You see their lifes were shorter, and if you were 50 you are on your way out...if NOT before! Are you going to call them into pedophilia.

I don't know about you but the society I grew up in doesn't do alot of things that they did in the past. I don't remember the last time one of my neighbors threw human waste in the middle of the street either. They didn't have toilets, and they didn't know how they were spreading disease and all the rest around. They changed that with findings it was causing health issues, but I guess if you want to use this agruement that would fine as well now if you do that also? Girls that young may have Menstrual periods, but alot of times they bodies aren't ready to bare children. Their maturity level isn't ready for a position within a marriage. Maybe we figured that out with time as well, and are we to ignore that? They say Prophet Mohammed consummated his marriage to his favourite wife when she was 9, but I don't think they truly KNEW the consquences of doing so at such a young age. Are they saying he would have done it if he had known this?



Above a youtube poster interruptation of such insanity that marrying a young girl off is moral. It seems ACT also doesn't agree with their interruptation either. These men need to stop justifying forced rape upon children like Nujood Ali, and others like her. They need to realize they are harming these girls, and I can't believe they would say that would honor Allah. Sorry - I don't buy it. They are called child marriages for a reason - they are children! They are child brides for that same reason.

Morocco shuts schools advocating child marriage

Dhimmi Watch Mentioned:

Morocco shuts down Qur'anic schools advocating child marriage
Anti-Sharia Alert -- although there are certain to be protests from traditional Muslims against this, since there is an abundance of evidence from the Islamic sources that Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha when she was nine.

Aired on LBC TV (Lebanon) - June 19, 2008 Dr. Ahmad Al-Mub'i, a Saudi Marriage Officiant: It Is Allowed to Marry a Girl at the Age of One, If Sex Is postponed. The Prophet Muhammad, Whose Model We Follow, Married 'Aisha When She Was Six and Had Sex with Her When She Was Nine.'



Okay fine tradition and cultures are different all over the world. The last line of the video, "Who said all men are ferocious wolves!". What has that got to do with anything? Nujood Ali was very lucky someone took pity on her, because it seems even her family felt they couldn't protect her against the ferocious wolf she married! When you have an environment in which nothing can be done about this, or the odds against you are HUGE of doing anything about it...that's called enabling the problem to continue! They do nothing about the ferocious wolves, and yet use the excuse that not ALL men are. Oh yeah - that will solve alot!

The article continues:

Authorities in Morocco have shut down around 60 Koranic schools belonging to a Muslim theologian who argues that girls as young as nine can marry, officials said today.

The authorities also plan to close down the Internet site on which Sheikh Mohamed Ben Abderrahman Al-Maghraoui decreed earlier this month that the marriage of nine-year-old girls is allowed by Islam.

The sheikh said his decree was based on the fact that the Prophet Mohammed consummated his marriage to his favourite wife when she was that age.

Lawyers, the media, and finally Muslim scholars rounded on Maghraoui for effectively seeking to legalise pedophilia.

The gentlemen in the video seems to legalize pedophilia! Shutting down schools that feel this practice is acceptable is fine, but what else is being done to stop this? There are alot of Nujood Ali's out there!

Child Brides sanctioned by the Prophet Mohammed

As I do more reading about Mujood Ali and other child brides we find that some clerics feel this is sanctioned by Prophet Mohammed. As you remember CBS News Reported:

Nujood Ali was married at the age of nine to a man three times her age. It’s not an uncommon practice. Roughly half of Yemeni girls are married before 18, some as young as 8 years old. But it’s unusual and unlawful for those marriages to be consummated before the bride turns 15. But in Nujood’s case, her husband didn’t wait. And after enduring several weeks of abuse, Nujood one morning boarded a bus to head off to court in the city of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. There she would wait for a judge to notice her. And there she would tell him, "I want a divorce."

He took her home to shelter her from her family, and then introduced her to Shada Nassar, one of a handful of female lawyers who is a staunch women’s rights advocate. Based on her husband’s own admission that he had slept with her, Nujood was granted a divorce. Since then, she’s inspired other girls forced into marriage to seek divorces. And she’s viewed by many in her country with bringing attention to a dangerous practice.

YES it would seem a very dangerous practice since girls of that age aren't mature enough to truly handle this role.

The Daily Nation reports:

Undoubtedly having heard of Nujood’s case, Mr Maghraoui, a Sulfist, issued the fatwa in June. He gave a crude rationale. A nine-year-old girl, he said, “has the same sexual capacity as a woman of 20 and over.” Moreover, “girls that age give better benefits than adult women.”

Lawyers, the media, Muslim scholars and the High Council of Ulemas hit back on what they considered legalisation of paedophilia. Authorities shut down Mr Al Maghraoui’s operations, including the website that carried the fatwa.

How completely sick is that? GIRLS that age give better benefits tha adult women? This man can say what he wishes, but I can't shallow the fact that any prophet would encourage pedophilia.

Defination: As a medical diagnosis, it is defined as a psychological disorder in which an adult experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children.

The story continues:

Opponents of the practice tend to use high-sounding phraseology like “abuse of children’s rights” in condemnation. Simply, child brides suffer complications in pregnancy and delivery. Death hovers. Deliveries tend to be premature. Infant mortality is high and baby weight is low. That’s useless procreation.

Those engaging in child marriages operate on a myth that a girl is ready for marriage, hence childbirth, on menstruation.

Rubbish! Medically, menstruation is just an occurrence in a journey from childhood to adulthood. The journey’s duration varies from individual to individual. Hence, a tendency exists to advocate marriage at a safer age, for example 18.

Evidence exists that those who engage in the practice of child marriages inflict bodily and psychological pain. Unfortunately, international effort to fight the practice isn’t anywhere commensurate to the problem a la the fight against HIV/Aids.

Moreover, the practice is so much of a waste. Asked what she planned to do, Nujood said she would return to school and study to be a lawyer or journalist. Kids have dreams, hopes and goals. Why shatter them?

Why shatter them? They have better benefits for the MEN! Bleck!

It seems this cause for young child brides is being brought front and center somewhat. I can't believe that people actually believe that Child Brides are sanctioned by the Prophet Mohammed.