Building a movement to end child marriage

Every year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18 (UNCF, 2018[1]). Rooted in gender inequality, child marriage Child marriage is any formal marriage or informal union in which at least one of the parties is under 18 years of age. Joint general recommendation No. 31 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women General comment No. 18 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on harmful practices. is a gross human rights violation that continues to leave girls behind - especially those from poor, rural, vulnerable and disadvantaged populations. It denies girls their rights to health, education and opportunity, while undermining the achievement of half of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and holding back economies (Wodon et al., 2017[2]). Yet until recently child marriage was widely considered taboo, and there were limited efforts to tackle it.