Virus despair forces girls across Asia into child marriage

Tens of thousands of girls across Asia are being forced into marriage by desperate families plunged into poverty because of the coronavirus pandemic, as campaigners warn years of progress tackling the practice is being undone.

Child marriage has long been common in traditional communities from the Indonesian archipelago to India, Pakistan and Vietnam, but numbers had been decreasing as charities made inroads by encouraging access to education and women’s health services.

These improvements are being eroded as the impact of the virus causes mass job losses leaving parents struggling to feed their families, experts say.

“All of the gains we’ve made in the past decade are really going to suffer,” explains Shipra Jha, head of Asia engagement, at NGO Girls Not Brides.

Poverty, lack of education, and insecurity, drive child marriage even in stable times, so periods of crises exacerbate the problem, the charity says.

Worldwide, an estimated 12 million girls are wed every year before the age of 18, according to the UN.

But the organisation has now warned that unless urgent action is taken to tackle the economic and social impact of the virus – an additional 13 million child marriages will take place in the next decade.

In Asia, charities report the snowball of forced unions has already begun, estimating tens of thousands are already affected – though hard data is yet to be collated.

“There has been an increase in child marriages during this lockdown period. There is rampant unemployment, job loss. Families are barely able to make ends meet, so they think it’s best to get their young daughters married off,” says Rolee Singh who runs India’s “1 Step 2 Stop Child Marriage” campaign.

Fifteen-year-old Muskaan says she is being forced to marry the 21-year-old boy next door by her mother and father, who are street cleaners in the Indian city of Varanasi and have six other children to feed.

“My parents are poor, what else could they have done? I fought as much as I could but eventually had to give in,” the teenager explains in tears.

Save the Children has already warned that violence against girls and the risk of forced unions, particularly among minors, “could become more of a threat than the virus itself”.

And while education has been hailed as the central tenet in the battle against child marriage, activists warn that with lockdowns forcing hundreds of millions out of school, girls in the poorest parts of the world will be worst affected.

Earlier this month, 275 former global leaders, education experts, and economists urged governments and organisations to ensure the fallout from the coronavirus does not create a “Covid generation ... robbed of their education and a fair chance in life”.

“Many of these children are adolescent girls for whom being in school is the best defence against forced marriage and the best hope for a life of expanded opportunity,” said an open letter signed by several dignitaries. — AFP